


Sanctuary (FalloutGate - Part 1)

by TheUnforgivingMinute



Series: FalloutGate [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst and Drama, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blood and Gore, Crossover, F/M, Flirting, Guns, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Jack being Jack, Post-Nuclear War, Romance, Sanctuary (Fallout 4), Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Stranded, Survival Horror, The Minutemen (Fallout) - Freeform, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 221,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnforgivingMinute/pseuds/TheUnforgivingMinute
Summary: Sam & Jack end up stranded together on a world that has suffered a nuclear apocalypse, but that seems eerily similar to Earth (set S8 pre-Threads, AU after that). A Sam/Jack ship story that happens to be set in the darker Fallout 4 Universe (if you don't know Fallout it won't impact your enjoyment at all, just be aware the setting/characters are borrowed) Hope you enjoy the ride!I used to write as devilishlysas (1818411) on Fanfiction.net but been dormant for some time, I'm dipping my toes back in with this.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Series: FalloutGate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903852
Comments: 228
Kudos: 201





	1. The Malfunction

**Author's Note:**

> Archive warnings should include sex, smut, drama, guns, angst, ust and graphic violence, some gore, it is a Fallout 4 setting. I'll pre-warn anything particular at the start of each chapter.  
> AU element: Janet's alive - because that was just a no from me always! And Sam didn't just 'get over' her experiences with Fifth straight away earlier in season 8.  
> Part of the FalloutGate series. Some parts are complete but not all so if you have comments and suggestions as to how you want it to go its not too late to feed my muse. If you are particularly a Fallout fan - Chapter 7 is where the setting really gets going for that with regards to submersion into the world.

**_[Planet Designation: P4M-523]_ **

Carter's legs were moving ahead of him, her entire body straining with the effort of keeping pace with him his newly fixed but still old knees (god bless the Asgard... or maybe it was one to many rounds in a sarcophagus) making that more of a challenge as they sprinted.

“I don't think we can make it Sir.” She exclaimed, her cheeks red from exertion, her lips a thin a grim line as her eyes widened in alertness and together they simultaneously dodged a weapons blast and he grunted, diving for her and taking her down behind a rubble wall for some cover.

“We'll make it.” He grit out, checking her over briefly, it wasn't like her to be defeatist, which meant she'd clearly calculated some odds he didn't want to know about. He glanced over their makeshift cover, Daniel and Teal'c were waving and encouraging them from the event horizon, already engaged with their ticket home.

He grabbed his radio. “Daniel you and Teal'c get through the gate. We're coming right behind you.” he instructed and returning fire over his head, he watched as Carter read his mind and unclipped a grenade lobbing it back towards the guards and their god damn energy beam weapons they had no business having.

“Jack....” Daniel started to cut him off.

“Now!” he bellowed through the radio. Why in hell was it that he'd ever agreed to work with civilians. No bloody sense of the chain of command, he was literally 'the Man now' and Daniel still never listened to him. He'd listened to Hammond... one star and eight years and Daniel was honest to God never going to just do as he damn well asked if it was Jack doing the asking.

“Regretting coming out for one last hoorah General Sir?” Carter almost mocked and he glanced at her, surprised given the current situation, but not entirely thrown, she always did enjoy a good firefight, adrenalin junky to the last.

He smirked at her. “Oh I don't know, I'm almost having fun Colonel _._ ” he grimaced as the explosion went off and glanced over seeing the smoke and debris he broke from cover, Carter right behind him.

They ran flat out, his chest heaving, the BDUs and weapon in his hand like old times with Carter at his side. Damn it felt good. They got to the ring and he noted the grouped bunch of locals with what looked like some sort of mounted canon. “Got to go, got to go!” he growled, grabbing Carter's arm and diving through the event horizon as the canon blast of god knows what went off.

It was a rough ride, his body hadn’t frozen up like this in transit for a hell of a long time, and his stomach felt like it was on the outside of his body as the wormhole spat them out the other side. He went airborne for a few seconds, he tried to relax in some vain attempt to soften the impact as his fingers clutched tightly onto her, as he landed heavily on his back in a bone crushing thump. Carter landed mostly on top of him and he gasped, winded and hoping to God she hadn't broken his ribs… again. What was it with Carter and his damn ribs. He looked up, just in time to see the gate which appeared to have been wedged in a now completely blasted apart metal crate high up in the eaves of the warehouse, as the sudden loss of stability began to crack the surrounding structure. Great chunks of debris began to rain down on them and he covered both their heads as a chunk of metal landed inches from their feet. Hell no.

“Move move move.” he hissed, dragging Carter up by her vest and knowing the whole damn thing was about to come down around their ears as dust and grime showered them and the deafening sound of metal collapsing reached a fever pitch.

Carter was right with him as they dived out the rusted doorway he’d kicked open with one good blow and he didn’t stop moving even as it practically crumbled in the impact, just about managing to clock the exterior of some sort of warehouse, rusted to all hell and stinking like a latrine as he glanced back. Definitely not in Kansas anymore he thought… wasn’t the gate room either. They stumbled as the the ground cracked with an almighty rumble and he glanced down seeing fissures creeping outwards like tendrils from the warehouse. Wherever they were, they’d made one hell of an entrance he noted grimly.

“Earthquake.” Carter told him needlessly and he tugged her by her arm as he scrambled to get them away from the flat ground that was cracking like damn ice around them. The terrible groaning and screeching filled the air and as he watched diving for a non existent tree line, the whole damn building disappeared into a god damn sink hole.

He stood stunned for a moment, taking in short pants of air as he realised he was covered in dust and debris but mostly intact. He glanced at Carter, likewise a couple of scrapes but no injuries. But her eyes were wide and terrified.

“It's okay Carter. We'll dig the gate out and get home.” he murmured confident that this was just a minor setback, they’d had worse. She turned to look at him, and he felt his stomach sink, her grimace telling him his positivity was misplaced. She shook her head but said nothing else as she trudged onwards up to higher ground, resolutely not towards the sink hole and he frowned but followed, he had enough sense to stick with the smartest person he knew.

“What...?” he pressed, not entirely certain he wanted to know what revelation she’d worked out that he’d failed to grasp.

She climbed up the incline and he followed, his legs feeling the strain as she reached the top and turned to look back after a good few minutes. She pointed. “Sir... that's a sink hole. Believe me when I tell you, that with all the equipment in the world, there may be no retrieving that gate.” She admitted looking resigned, “It could be 100s of feet deep. The gate is likely buried under tonne's of rock and probably sunken in water.” she added for good measure pointing at what looked like a coast line in the distance.

“Oh.” he grumbled. “Well that sucks.” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck and wiping the sweat that had formed there off. His brain working through permutations of just how screwed they were. He was also getting the unpleasant taste of déjà vu. Gate gets hit by blast, they get spat out somewhere other than where intended, gate is gone/non-functional.

“They hit the gate with some sort of high powered energy weapon.” The Colonel confirmed his line of thinking as she turned to look at him, giving him a once over for injuries just as he had her. “Whilst we were in transit probably.”

He grimaced. He remembered how this one went. “Really?” he griped. “What are the odds Carter. Me and you, spat out of the wrong gate again?” he sighed the flashback to Antarctica literally making him shiver and wince in remembered pain, “Well at least there's no ice this time.” He commented, glancing around and looking at what there was.

“And there’s nothing I need to put a splint on.” She added glibly echoing his thoughts and giving him a wry smirk at the shared memory.

“Silver linings.” He muttered as he spun around and got a good look at where they were and started to feel that knot of unease growing larger. “This place looks _bleak._ ” he settled on, noting literally no vegetation, and from where they were standing in some sort of old shipping warehouse by the look of it, no one had been here for a hell of a long time.

Carter was squinting her eyes going down to one of her fancy monitors. She whipped it out from her belt and glanced at him, that pinched expression on her face not helping that knot in his gut any. “You have that look.” he told her.

“Indeed.” she replied giving nothing more away and emulating his favourite guy perfectly, even the eyebrow quirked.

“I'm going to regret the no-ice quip aren't I.” he groused. Waving his hand for her to give it to him straight.

“I'm picking up extremely high levels of background radiation.” she replied. He balked, he hadn't been expecting that. But he supposed it had to happen to them eventually, it wasn't the first irradiated world they'd discovered through the gate. Normally they didn't send people through them though.

“How high?”

“High.” she muttered. Her eyes raised and she took in the landscape, her eyes lifting to the sky, which looked a little grey. “Sir... I think this planet might have suffered a nuclear holocaust.”

“Ah God damn it Carter. Please don't tell me that. Don't tell me we just watched the Stargate sink into oblivion on a dead world.” He muttered, rubbing his hand across his forehead and feeling a tension headache coming on.

“A dead and radioactive world, if you want to get technical Sir.” She snipped back, and pocketed her device, her expression looking as dark as he was sure his did.

“Okay. So, any ideas?” 


	2. Sanctuary

There was no escaping the bleakness of this world. The ground was scorched, the trees and plant life mostly gone, what was left was a husk, only something dead or mutated or hardy enough to begin with still existed. Including the animals they'd discovered. Their first encounter with one of the natives on this planet came as something of a shock.

“Carter down!” the General barked at her. His 2IC reacted instinctively, apparently you couldn't get rid of their seamless command structure no matter the situation, they’d after all worked in virtual harmony for the better part of eight years. The gun fire exploded over her head with precision as he took down the biggest damn bug she'd ever seen. She stood, taking her fingers out of her ears and moving to toe the downed and mostly exploded creature as it twitched on the ground, leaking.

“Now that's a big bug.” He pointed out and she glanced at him uneasily, before returning to examine the creature, grabbing a stick she moved its innards about, noting with unease the overly sharp pincers and the huge stinger that was clearly dripping some sort of venom.

“It's clearly some sort of insect. Looks a lot like a carrion fly we have back on Earth... except it's a whole lot bigger.” She muttered with disgust. “And it stinks.” She added backing away wearing what she knew had to be a look of revulsion.

“Why's it so big?” he questioned in that way he did, always expecting her to have an answer, or at least a theory for him.

Sam stood up, keeping her stick in her hand as she considered the dead bug. “It could be that insects have always been unnaturally large on this world.” she shrugged. “Or, it could be an effect of the radiation... a lack of predators, any number of reasons I suppose.” she reasoned, trying to hide just how unnerved giant bugs made her.

She glanced around at the surrounding lack of vegetation, they'd been walking for several miles and this was the first signs of life they'd found. “Sir... this is the first _thing_ , that's alive we've found.”

He gave her a thousand yard stare and looked back at the bug, his pallor going slightly grey. She should have known he'd understand. “It’s probably poisonous.” he informed her needlessly, as eager as she was for what she was suggesting.

She nudged the stinger with her stick and knocked off the base of its abdomen to free it from the danger, just like a scorpion back in the Gulf. “Poisonous probably yes. But the flesh itself may not be toxic. And bugs have a lot of protein.” Her stomach lurched and she exhaled sharply to force the nausea to pass.

“Carter, the whole worlds toxic.” he reminded her needlessly and she hoped she wasn't going to have to remind him that they'd die of starvation long before the radiation got them. “There's a good bet this thing is packing a nice dose of cancer.” he groused, he did not want to touch that thing, let alone eat it that much was clear.

Sam grimaced. “I think we need to consider living now. We can die of cancer later.” Okay so she had to go there, it had come down to that.

General O’Neill passed his hand over his face and let his weapon fall across his chest. “Okay. How about we cut this thing up, save it for sometime close to never, when I've started to think about gnawing at my own arm before we consider it...yeah?”

She nodded trying not to quirk her lips, because it really wasn’t funny, as she raised her knife and got to work. They'd picked up a few bits and bobs on the way from what was clearly a wasteland, abandoned rotting plastics, cloth, tattered remnants of clothing, flags. She would have given a lot for a damn backpack like the ones they used to carry, but this hadn't been an overnight mission. Just a basic meet and greet and check on the locals to see if the Replicators led by her own worst self, had spread that far. She hadn't expected to get stuck in ‘Apocalypse Now’.

Mostly she was trying to keep calm, to stay focussed on the task at hand, on surviving to figure out some way out of this. Although she was drawing a blank on that. Jack hadn't pestered her, for which she was thankful, he knew she was working through the permutations in her head, going over plans and back up plans. Working out their chances and how to maximise them. Although right now if he asked, she wasn’t sure what more she could tell him.

They walked for another four hours, coming across a couple of structures burnt out bridges, mostly nothing but hills and wasteland as they encountered one or two more bugs, different to the last one but equally unpleasant... and huge.

“Roaches.” he growled, stomping one into bits that was twice the size of his boot. “God damn it I do not like this planet!” he exclaimed looking darkly at the mess of his boot.

“Looks like what they say is true. The end of the world, it'll just be the roaches left.” Carter muttered, turning to blink into the blazing sun behind her sunglasses which was beating down on them now, blowing the dust around, even as she tried to breath shallow, knowing she was probably going to be inhaling poison with every breath. “Doesn't even seem to matter which world, it's always the roaches.” She mused, or whatever hard shelled insect like creature had evolved.

“I see water.” The General pointed with his gun and she glanced up following his line of sight. It was a lake of some kind. She approached cautiously with the her CO taking up the rear having keener eyesight than she did for movement. She didn't fancy running into one of those huge damn mosquito-like things they'd encountered again, damn thing had been so fast she'd had to down it with a tree branch rather than waste the ammo hitting nothing but air. She knelt down beside the surprisingly clear water and held her device over it. The results weren’t good and she hit the ground in frustration with her hand before shoving the device away. Trying to school some of her irritation and disappointment before she responded to the inevitable question.

“That bad huh?” he asked and she looked up at him shading her eyes to see him as he slipped his sunglasses on too.

“About as bad as the dust we're breathing.” She huffed. “Honestly, we need the water. It's irradiated but everything on this god damn planet probably is. I'm not sure it’s any worse than just being here. And if we don't drink we'll be dead in 48 hours anyway.”

The General sighed and crouched down beside her. “Shouldn't we boil it?” he pointed out.

“Probably.” she admitted. “But that won't take care of the radiation Sir.”

“Great.” he sighed and they set about making a makeshift camp, she picked up the metal bowl he'd found half buried in the dirt and washed it out. “Carter how long you reckon we’ve got until nightfall?” he eyed the spot she'd picked with distaste and she glanced up at the sky, and then back at her watch. 

“Based on the movement of the sun, I'd say we've got another couple of hours of daylight left, I suspect the relative movement of the sun is similar to Earth's.” He nodded and set about making a fire, at least he had his damn lighter. Honestly, she was starting to see why he preferred to stuff his BDU pockets with everything he could. 'Caught short too many damn times' he'd said. Plus, the General had been convinced he was going to jinx them by stepping back through the gate, she didn't need to tell him he clearly had.

“We should boil what we can Carter. Fill the canteen's then get to higher ground, I don't want my ass bit off by some giant damn 'gator in the night.” Her CO pointed out needlessly and she nodded, agreeing almost wordlessly as the fire caught the kindling and she set up the bowl over the flames, it was standard but she appreciated him taking the time to make sure their heads were in sync the way they’d always been in the field. When it was done they carefully poured the water into the canteens and took it in turns to drink from the remainder in the bowl.

“Cheers.” he joked and with one thin grimace downed the water. He smacked his lips. “Tastes okay.” he added swallowing. “Surprisingly.”

Sam nodded and took a sip. It should have been relatively clean, she'd scoped it out a little and determined it was coming from a mountain stream, so it should be, except for the fact that it contained Uranium 235 and a butt load of gamma that she was trying not to think about as she raised it to her lips.

“Reckon I'll turn into the Incredible Hulk?” He quipped as she took a mouthful and she snorted almost spitting it out, he smirked, pleased to get a chuckle out of her.

“More likely we'll just dissolve into goo.” she replied, without his humour and wiped the back of her mouth with her hand, before she stood, swiping off the dust from her knees. “We need to keep moving. I don't want to be out in the open.” She clarified glancing nervously at the open spaces around them which seemed to somehow still conceal everything creeping up on them.

“Yeah. Sure.” He sighed, getting to his feet. “Although as picnic spots go this one had its perks.” He added, staring across the water which she had to admit looked a hell of a lot better than the rest of the landscape, she could almost sense his reluctance to leave it.

“Let me guess, your imagining a little pier there, cabin there…” she pointed to the water’s edge, knowing what he was thinking.

He gave her a grin that crinkled his eyes, before he popped his sunglasses back on hiding them from her. “Still wouldn’t be any fish though.” He called back as he sauntered away and she smirked watching his six, feeling not for the first time her relief that it was Jack O’Neill she was stuck with, if nothing else she’d still be able to laugh at his stupid jokes. It was nice she hadn’t spent much time with him since he’d been promoted she’d actually missed his wise ass comments she realised out in the field. Daniel was chatty but not funny, T’ealc was funny but not chatty… it meant they’d all missed the _‘O’Neill’_ shaped hole in their unit, as T’ealc had called it. Her eyes drifted a moment as she realised she’d also missed watching his incredibly tight ass as it sauntered away from her in his green combats… She stopped that line of thought. Trying to imagine how Pete would take the news when they were reported missing in 48 hours time. Although there was no harm in looking she mused, after all if she hadn’t acted on her attraction to her CO before now, the familiar if pleasant sight of his ass was hardly going to tip her over the edge. And there was also the joyful thought that in a little while they probably wouldn’t look anywhere near as attractive or be up for sauntering away from her anywhere as they slowly rotted away from radiation poisoning. The thought was sobering and she pushed down the bile and the urge to vomit up the contaminated water. At least there stay on this world might be horrible but at least it would be brief if they were stuck here.

They walked for a few more hours, before the General spotted something glinting. “Colonel.” He pointed getting her to follow his line of sight, “That look like the suburbs to you?” He asked in disbelief as he hopped a stream, keeping his boots out of it, which she thought was less about not getting them wet and more about his issue with the radiation, which was frankly ridiculous given as he’d been drinking it. But then the man was a walking contradiction.

“What?” he asked catching her look with a questioning one of his own as he reached back for her hand and tugged her across to stand beside him.

“Nothing Sir.” She smirked and frowned staring out at what he’d pointed out which had clearly once been some sort of town. Complete with the white picket fences around the lawns, streetlights and mailboxes, most of it was still standing.

“Damn.” He let out a whistle. “Picket fences. That’s creepy right?” he asked her without asking, shaking his head ruefully as she considered the implications and tried not to reach a conclusion too soon before she had all the data.

But creepy wasn't the half of it as they walked through the remnants of a wasted away bunch of houses. He kicked the door that was rusted shut on one of them whilst she stared at the rusted mailbox, and then up at the car or what she assumed was a car, it didn't have wheels but it looked a lot like an old 50s convertible. Or at least the shell of one.

“Carter, come see this.” He summoned her and she followed him into the house, stopping dead at the rusted and dusty interior.

“Wow.” she breathed, “That's....”

“Freaky as all hell.” He muttered, sifting through the rubbish to stare at the kitchen cabinets which you could just about make out the rusted shade of blue they were painted in. He glanced around at the furniture some of it salvageable. If filthy.

“I'm not imagining the 50s 'world of tomorrow' vibe am I?” he asked her looking like he thought he might be going nuts. “Because I’m starting to wonder if I hit my head coming out that gate, or you know early signs of radiation poisoning.” He almost looked hopeful that she might conclude that, fearing the truth might be stranger.

She shook her head. “No, I see it.” she muttered, “Right down to the hovercars out front.” she admitted.

He blinked. “Huh. It's like 'Back to the future'... or something.” he added, then noticed her concerned look and hastily went to check the back rooms, clearly deciding that conversation about just what she was considering could wait.

“There's a bed. Mattress too. I only count like... fifty different strains of mould. Maybe.” He called out to her and despite it, she appreciated him attempting to make light of it once more. Daniel would have done nothing but whine, T’ealc would have been stoic about it but ultimately chosen to sleep elsewhere but not commented. Pete would have tried to make her laugh too… she shut that thought off. Pete wasn’t here.

“It's strange.” She mused aloud for his benefit, “Technologically they seem advanced, but some of the architecture feels... old, almost retro.” she noted the former TV stand and bent to examine it, removing the front housing and flinching back when she spotted the power core.

“Holy crap!” she exclaimed and he appeared suddenly a little out of breath weapon pointed.

“Sorry,” she pointed to the TV and he gave her a look that told her not to play on his trigger finger.

“I think they used cold fusion as a power source. Nuclear powered well... everything.” She imagined that was how they generated enough power to make a car hover. If that's what it did.

She glanced at the casing and flinched when she could read the wording. “Product of General Atomics.” she read aloud.

His sharp eyes scoured the room as he took her in from her position carefully putting the TV panel back in place. “Until it blew up in their faces.” He commented.

Sam grimaced. “Or they deliberately blew it up.” she pointed to what was clearly some sort of a weapons case.

“Ooh. Gun.” The General murmured rubbing his hand together with glee like a kid in a candy store, unable to entirely keep his excitement at bay as he plucked what looked like a hunting rifle from the cabinet. He lined it up and mimicked testing it out in a smooth action that never seemed to get old. Ignoring the fact that he was essentially grave robbing… or tomb raiding given as this had used to belong to some poor sucker.

“Not bad. Could be useful, doubt we'll find more rounds for our weapons unless we make some and I'm not seeing a machine chop class around here.” He reached in and tossed her the ammo packet removing one shell himself and loading the chamber to test if it was live. He unleashed a shot at the pavement through the door and she flinched as he took a heavy step back, wincing as he rubbed his shoulder. He turned, giving her a thumbs up.

“Okay. It works, packs a hell of a punch too.” he admitted. “This isn't... nuclear, right?” he queried and she actually laughed, but he remained staring at her and she realised he was serious.

“I think your fine with the lever action rifle Sir.” she smirked at him and he gave her a glower. “You want to bed down in here?” she asked changing the subject as she glanced once more at the four walls, they weren't solid, she could see through the plaster board in some places where the outer cladding had rusted away entirely. But the roof looked solid and it would keep the elements off them.

He nodded. “Seems as good a place as any we've seen. We should really do a sweep of the other houses but I'm guessing no ones been here in a long time.” Then he sighed, placing the rifle down close to them as he clearly considered the next steps to get it secure, routine actions a comfort in this strange place she realised as she automatically set about before he even spoke.

“Help me barricade up what we can and we'll set up a small perimeter around this room.”

They discovered some canned food on their exploration of the ruined house once they’d upended an old table against the back door and generally filled in as many holes as possible. They sat on the floor of what used to be the living room on an old rug that was so faded she couldn’t even tell the colour let alone the pattern, but it beat the cold ground. Wordlessly they sat down together around the makeshift campfire they’d made out of a metal drum. She crossed her legs leaning against the worn honest to god dilapidated sofa and he handed her a tin. Sam examined it, the writing on the label had worn away but he'd managed to carve it open with his knife. She eyed it warily.

“Looks and smells a lot like pork and beans to me Colonel. _”_ he replied, eyeing the faded picture on the front apprehensively but giving it the sniff test again. After all they’d both spent more time than not eating crap food from a packet in their serving lives.

“I kind of wish it didn't look familiar at all.” She admitted as they sat inside their sheltered pre-fab 50s throwback house and she debated how badly she really needed to eat as she stared at the now warm contents of the can. She dug her finger in tasting it and was pleasantly surprised. Apparently, whatever they used to preserve their canned food, it was a better process than on Earth, because the food seemed edible enough, like it had been perfectly preserved inside. Despite the time she was starting to suspect had passed since the nuclear devastation wiped out the civilisation.

He took a mouthful and chewed it around for a minute before swallowing her eyes were on him, waiting for the verdict, but then the General always could eat anything, usually out of necessity.

“Pretty good. Pork and beans. Like I said.” He added, scooping some more out with his fingers. Sam followed suit.

“This isn't a lead can is it Carter?” he asked as he was halfway through, as if the thought was just occurring to him and he took a particularly pointed swallow, wondering if he was poisoning himself clearly, which she found ironic all over again. Like the boots and the water thing. God he pushed her buttons… good and bad.

“I'm not sure it would matter at this point.” Sam reminded him and he still didn’t look convinced, with an exasperated mock sigh she tapped the outside of hers.

“No its not lead, it looks like aluminium maybe, but more robust, some metal alloy perhaps, I'm not that familiar with it. But not lead, too light.” She added and he nodded, sticking his finger back in for more and chewing it in silence as she did the same, not noticing her eyeroll at him in fond exasperation.

She decided the silence was worse as the last of the light faded and they were plunged into the darkness with only the flickering of their barrel fire causing shadows to dance across the room.

“I'm kind of keen to see their technology up close, I had no idea it was possible to preserve food for this long.” She admitted, scraping out the last of her food.

“So long?” Jack queried and gave her his patented stare, he gently put his now empty can down with a slightly sick look. “And how long _exactly_ do you think its been?” He almost accused as though she'd been holding out on him. She hadn't, she just hadn't figured the right way to broach the topic yet.

He wouldn’t like the answer, hell she didn’t like the answer. “Probably 200 years give or take based on the relative decay rate of Uranium 235... and the oxidisation we're seeing.” Sam paused and looked at him, “There’s also the rust, build up on the buildings, and the general disrepair and degradation of the concrete structures and the road out there, assuming of course they used something like concrete.” It had certainly felt like it and the chunks she’d examined had all the consistency of it. Another disturbing thought to add to the long list. Then again these were the ancient people’s of Earth, she assumed, it made sense that their evolutionary path’s could have been so similar, they had after all met civilisations similar technologically to their own.

His face shuttered for a moment and she wondered what he had taken from that, what assessments his tactical mind would pull apart. He scrubbed his hair in that way he did when he was uncomfortable.

“200 years since nuclear holocaust. Swell.” he glanced at the can. “I can’t believe you let me eat 200-year-old canned food.” He accused slightly with his eyebrows giving her hell.

She smirked. “I did a taste and smell test Sir. Plus you went first and it didn’t kill you.” She mocked rolling her eyes. “And like I said their technology is or at least _was_ advanced, it's perfectly preserved.” She took her last deliberate mouthful, hating to admit it actually tasted pretty good.

He gave her a thousand-yard stare, “S’pose it was better than MRE’s at any rate.” She laughed quietly smiling as he smirked at her and nudged her leg with his boot in that way he did sometimes, just to reinforce a connection.

“Well… this wasn’t quite how I expected my day to go.” He added glancing around, his gun resting beside him and took in their predicament.

“No Sir.” Sam replied, almost on reflex. “But we’re alive. We have shelter and food. Considering the alternative that’s a win.”

“Sure.” He admitted, his knees up to his chest as he played with his knife. “Got to look on the bright side. Plus… marooned with me. Could have been worse, could have been Daniel.”

Sam chuckled. “I’m a lucky girl Sir.” She retorted and he gave her a half grin, his dark eyes scanning over her face for a moment before he returned to his musing.

“Do you think they bombed themselves to death, or was it some sort of accident?” Sam asked mostly just thinking aloud. Not really expecting him to answer, the silence between them had always been pregnant and uncomfortable at times and you could cut the tension with a knife, then were those other times when it wasn’t and it was frighteningly easy to simply exist beside him. This time though, the silence just felt empty as they both considered the option of being stranded she imagined, in a dead world. Not that she’d abandoned hope of rescue just yet, but she wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence right now about their chances.

The General seemed to be taking her query seriously and he took a moment to respond.

“I think it’s the same whatever damn planet you’re on, if you stick humans on it, it’s always going to go to hell. This whole mess stinks of war and war… that never changes.” He intoned darkly as he reached into his BDU jacket pocket and handed her a scrap of paper. She took it and folded it out, before blinking in surprise at the familiar image, a military commander of some sort, his finger pointing out of the page as what was clearly a flag and a weapon behind the figure. A call to arms all too familiar even if the writing was all but faded the message remained clear enough. He’d clearly picked that up along the way and had kept it as a reminder, or just as she had, some unpleasant news to dole out to her later as she had on the suspected time-frame of this planets demise.

“Curiouser and curiouser.” She murmured and the General nodded his agreement. They shared a moment before she looked away quickly. It was dangerous to stare into Jack O’Neill’s eyes it always had been. Especially when there was a complete clusterfuck happening here. The two of them stranded on this world, alone, away from anyone that might be able to remind them of exactly why they chose not to sit so damn close to each other.

“So, how long and how far do we need to go before you think of something spectacular to get us out of this?” he posed, giving her a look that suggested he had to ask, but clearly he did.

“Sir, I honestly am working on it, but I have no idea how.” She admitted terrified by the thought of being so powerless. And she had been thinking through permutations and endless plans and ideas in her head since she’d watched their one way home literally sink out of her grasp.

“It’ll come to you, I have faith.” He replied gruffly, looking away.

“How?” she asked, almost pleading with him to give her back her faith.

“Experience Carter, you’ve been pulling miracles out of your ass for 8 years. I say we’re due one more, for old times sake.” He smiled wanly but she saw the pain in it, that he had no choice but to ask this of her, to put the responsibility of saving there assess on her.

They hadn’t talked much after that, Sam lost in her own head and working through permutations or at least she wanted him to think she was. In reality she was as out of ideas as she’d claimed, stuck in a repeating loop of watching their only hope sink into the ground. Sam lay down on the dusty floor, her BDU jacket at least providing some protection against the chill. The fire helped too.

“Do you think we should put it out, we don't want to attract anything?” Sam indicated the fire to the quiet figure sat on guard behind her as they automatically shifted into the well-practiced off world pattern of him taking first watch. She turned glancing to the side at his shadowed reflection as he held his weapon pointed at the door.

“It's a minimal risk inside the building like this, and we need the heat.” He responded after a few minutes. The unspoken agreement that they’d seen what came out in the day on this world, they were both slightly anxious about what the night might bring

“Sleep. I've got first watch.” He insisted.

It should have been harder to sleep than it was, but she was used to bedding down in uncomfortable conditions, used to grabbing sleep whenever she could to preserve her strength. They'd need it, she figured they'd walked a good 30 klicks today. It helped to have her CO watching over her again, she'd always felt secure enough to rest when he was on watch, no matter the situation. Closing her eyes she tried not to think about this god awful planet and the 'there but by the grace of God' feel to it all. Sleep from exhaustion took her eventually.

He roused her for her watch half way through the night and she took up his spot without comment, watching as the sky grew lighter. Her eyes on the burnt-out vehicles and the various doohicky’s she could make out in the house. Itching to take them apart but not daring to disturb the quiet. A dust storm blew through the centre of the street at just before sun-up bringing with it a radiation spike and she shifted nervously. She didn't especially want to die of radiation poisoning. She'd seen all too vividly the effects on Daniel and it was horrendous, if it came to that, she'd eat a bullet. The General would no doubt want the same. Although whether they’d do it themselves or to each other she didn’t really want to think about.

For the first time since they'd gotten stuck here she let herself think of Pete. If they were stuck here… or died before help came, then he'd never know what happened to her, he'd be given a line, told she died in the service of her country, and be handed someone else’s ashes to bury or an empty coffin depending on the story they went with. Her brother would be disappointed in her from beyond the grave for dying like that... for someone else’s pointless war, as he saw it. And Dad.... her Dad would pull away from humanity, sinking into the Tok-Ra further and further until there was nothing of him left, without her to keep him tethered. Damn it, she didn't want to be another statistic. Dying for a cause was one thing, like T’ealc said, dying with honour in battle was noble. This… this just sucked, there was no nobility in wasting away on a barren world.

She settled her eyes onto Jack O’Neill’s sleeping form, his head turned her way and she let herself admire him as he lay there where no one could judge her. His General stars should have meant he wasn't here with her, should have kept him safe flying a desk as he headed for great things, just like she'd always known, and yet somehow she knew he considered it a demotion. Like he was less useful now. But in the slowly rising sun, as it extended the shadows across his face and revealed the salt and pepper dusting in his hair steadily spreading, she was more grateful than ever that he was the one here with her, and that she wasn’t here alone. She'd always thought in the privacy of her own mind, that if she was going to be stranded off world, it might as well be with him. The notion of being stuck here, on this dead world with Pete made her shudder. He wasn't a survivor like the General, and didn't thrive on adrenalin like she did. Didn't see the wonder in it all like Daniel. And he didn't have a lifetime to atone for like T'ealc. He was just Pete, safe, warm, loving, 'oh so didn't deserve her and her crap' Pete. And he loved her, loved her like she didn't know how to return it, because no matter how she tried... this ridiculous man-child snoring faintly and battling the pull of his ever-present nightmares for a life hard-lived... always seemed to draw her back in to this _thing_ between them.

They'd promised to leave it in the room once. Maybe more than once. But it was hard, the type of chemistry they had, the trust, the bond, it wasn't just something that happened, they'd worked at it, even if that initial attraction had been easy. But whatever it was, it was hers and damn it if she didn't sometimes want the pay off. The 'one day' they'd half promised themselves. Or she'd promised herself. Was it so long ago as she'd lay practically dying of a head wound drifting dead in space, that she'd decided to follow her own hallucinations advice and ‘go get a life’. Love someone else and let herself just be happy. She’d decided she couldn't afford to wait for Jack anymore. The irony wasn’t lost on her that she may have given up on him, just before she was granted all the ‘time’ in the world with him.

But he was and always would be her CO, even if he got promoted up and out of her chain of Command, a part of her would always think of him as 'Sir'. The word dropped her head and drew a shiver, she was almost conditioned now to bark it, but the tone, the tone was hers to control. Almost a decade of sexual tension in the workplace would lead to you doing and saying things you might never have considered once. Like being in love with two men at the same time.

She was supposed to be planning her wedding to Pete. Not thinking about Jack... ‘ _the_ _General’_ she corrected herself mentally, nor the many ways they'd 'almost' been, except never could. Weddings, flowers, dresses, cake, all that crap that was supposed to show her love for the man she'd chosen. Supposed to show the world that they were united, bound together by fate.

Except if that were true, why was it fate kept throwing her CO at her, time and time again? 

There was always a chance of a rescue of course, but she wasn't getting her hopes up, ‘better no hope than a fools hope’ her Dad used to say. General O’Neill would hate it, he was all for the last minute Hail Mary pass, plus he hated a cliché. But if by some miracle they found a way off this planet it wouldn't be soon. He hadn't asked, and she hadn't volunteered it, which was probably why he had known better than to ask, but the chances of a ship rescuing them were remote. Worse the chances of Daniel and Teal'c assuming anything other than that they were dead, lost when the matter stream collapsed, were ridiculous. They weren't on a nearby gate they'd explored all those nearby Earth and none of them was a nuclear wasteland thankfully. She hadn't had a chance to look at the stars, too much dust in the air, maybe it would clear and she could get a good look to confirm, at least if she could recognise some of the constellations she'd have a rough idea how far off Earth they were. But for all intents and purposes they might as well be a needle in a Galaxy sized haystack, with literally no clues and no way of knowing they weren't simply dead. Daniel and Teal'c might not even realise they entered the wormhole, her gate diagnostic system might reveal they entered the matterstream, but a blast strong enough to disrupt it would have fried the circuits. Hell they'd probably be lucky if the gate back on P4M-523 was even still functional.

The chances were that unless this world had a space craft capable of faster than light travel, or even just travel to another planet, then they would be here indefinitely. Until they died of radiation sickness or got eaten by the local wildlife. A happy ending it was not. Fate apparently was a real bitch.

“You keep chewing that thing it’s going to disappear”

Sam blinked drawn from her morose thoughts by his low rumbled comment, his voice rough with sleep as she looked up to find the General staring at her with his dark eyes fixed on her face. He tapped his lip and nodded, and she released hers from between her teeth, not realising she was chewing on it.

Slowly he sat up wearily running his hands through his hair roughly in a gesture achingly familiar to her after all this time waking up beside him on countless worlds. She shouldn't know his intimate habits, shouldn't know what he looked like when he was having a nightmare, or how he looked rumpled with sleep. Or that he peed like a racehorse in the morning. She wasn't supposed to know a man like this unless he was actually _her_ man. She'd never seen Pete have a nightmare she mused, wasn't certain he even had anything to trouble his sleep about, it used to be something she'd found refreshing about him, but on occasion, when he was snoring soundly beside her and she was tossing and turning, reliving nightmare scenarios and horrific memories some of them not her own, it would have been nice to have someone next to her that understood not to shake her awake because she might come up swinging. Not to touch her on her wrists because it would remind her of all the times she'd been bound and send her scuttling away. Never to brush her forehead where the feel of a psychopathic machines fingers sliding in over and over, remained.

“Sorry Sir... I was thinking.” she mused, and lowered her gun to a resting position beside her seat. He watched her rub her forehead and winced, knowing what she was reliving even if they’d never actually discussed her imprisonment with Fifth, but he’d slept beside her these last few nights here enough to know that she still woke from the nightmares of it.

He’d read her report of course at the time, she’d put it in there about how he’d tortured her by delving his fingers into her mind, no longer using it as a method solely to extract information. Deliberately pushing nightmares and horrific images and scenario’s into her mind over and over, even memories that she was certain had never been hers, there was an Iraqi cell in there somewhere which she was certain had come from Jack’s mind and memories. But the report hadn’t needed the details, not when caught up with the victory that was their push back of the Replicators of Orilla, and no one least of all Weir knew better to ask for more. So she’d left out of the report the fact that Fifth had broken her, that she’d lay at his feet, shaking and sobbing, begging him to stop. Or that he had. That in his psychotic, twisted logic processors he’d taken that to mean she was ready to accept his alternative equally sick option, to accept his _love_ rather than his hate. How he had dragged her into a fantasy world in some sick attempt to keep her, like a bird in a cage, to play house with her. How he’d kissed her. How he’d _loved_ her enough to let her go. She wasn’t a fool, but she hadn’t wanted to unpick herself the implications of what he’d done to her… it had been rape, just of her mind rather than her body. Although, she considered the fact that he had created a copy of her body, filled it with her memories and personality, and probably fucked that like a blow-up doll hadn’t escaped her either when she’d come face to face with Repli-Carter. Nor did it escape her notice that was probably the real reason he’d released her, because he had enough materials to make his perfect version of her.

Jack had been General then, and he’d known to ask one question of her report. Not that he’d made her put it on record, but he’d looked her in her eye and asked _. “Why did you trust her at all?”_ Wanting to reassure himself of her mental competence and to explain why there was a replicator ‘her’ running around hell bent on Universal domination with a mean streak a Galaxy wide.

_“Because she was me.”_ The ‘before Fifth broke her’ she’d kept to herself. _“He stripped away everything that made her me though, in order to make her comply and obey her programming. That was his mistake. He tore down her humanity in his pathetic attempt to make her the same as him.”_ Sam had admitted sharply to him, her stance and posture ramrod straight, telling him only what he needed to know and hoping he knew better than to pry.

PTSD was funny like that, much like how she’d never poked for the full story of what happened during Ba’al, having seen his spares few lines of report that covered his time there. _‘Batchi was an asshole who liked torture. I didn’t know anything. I died a lot. We should really put him higher up the priority target list. I don’t need a shrink.’_

Her response had been equally as measured and concise, not daring to get too near to anything ‘real’. _“I knew she’d hate him. Because I did too, but I forgot for a moment she was a replicator and she had her own agenda that was never mine.”_ He’d dismissed her after that with a knowing look that suggested one day, he might want to hear the rest, but he chose to let it go at the time, so long as her assured ‘ _I’m fine’_ had come out strong and accompanied with a smile. She sometimes thought that if they ever ‘actually’ talked they’d drown in all the repressed pain and feeling they’d had to push down for ‘another day’.

He got in her eyeline and distracted her. “Not happy thoughts I take it by that expression. You've got your.... McKay face on.” He pointed out and she grimaced. 'Sour lemons indeed' as T'ealc would say.

“I was just calculating the odds of a rescue...” She half lied, “Or of them even knowing we were alive to need one.” She admitted and he looked down at his boots his expression carefully neutral, she knew he was letting her deflect, and use him as a sounding board. He was good like that. Sometimes forcing her to break an argument down to its simplest parameters for him allowed her to come up with a new way of looking at it.

“That bad huh?” he quipped trying to make it light and it falling flat in the hazy red light of the dust storm that was blotting out the sun through the openings in the walls that they hadn't managed to sure up.

She smiled grimly. “We need to seriously consider our long-term options here Sir.”

The General stood, brushing off his pant legs and stomping out the dying embers of the fire whilst he considered what to say. She could see his mind going over the permutations, he was for all his protests about his lack of smarts, a brilliant strategist with a knack for survival against the odds and an iron will. Just a few of the things she'd long admired about her CO.

“Carter. Long term, I just don't know. This place, it's dead, until we start to see some signs of life or at least a present we can survive in for more than a day or two, I'm not going to think about the long term. I can't.” he admitted and she nodded, agreeing even if it was hard not to worry about what lay ahead. He was right of course, they had to focus on the now, surviving today might prove to be a challenge after all.

“What do you say we go rustle up some more 200 year old canned food for breakfast and go see what else has been left behind in these old houses before we maybe explore the local area a bit more.” He patted his cargo pant leg.

“I have something that will cheer you up.” He pulled out a bag of instant coffee that he’d clearly pilfered from the MRE stores back home. “Never leave home without it!” he declared and grinned at her so genuinely that she couldn’t help but return it, feeling a little lighter at the prospect of a strong brown brew out here.

“Okay coffee would be heavenly right now Sir.” She admitted, getting to her feet.

“I’ll go boil some water for our ever-so-slightly radioactive coffee then shall I.” he quipped and she only wished he was joking.

“Sounds good Sir.” she nodded getting to her feet, “I'd like to take a look at the technology today with what’s been left behind here, there's always the chance that they were capable of space travel.” She added with something that sounded horribly like hope and he gave her a small flicker of a smile.

“Well Carter, given enough time, a washing machine like the one out back, and one of those fancy nuclear reactors they've got stashed inside the TV, I have absolute faith you could probably come up with something.” His praise and faith was like a warm glove that had always fitted over her perfectly, making her feel at home and confident. But there was a hollow tang to it now, because she honestly didn't know if even pulling off a Hail Mary pass would be enough to get them out of this.

The coffee helped lift her spirits some, and she chose not to consider what exactly was going into her drink and the damage it might be doing to her body. She’d already decided it was die now or die later. At least later there was still a snowballs chance in hell of them getting out of this. They shared a look over their coffee cups, sat in a pair of old rusted patio chairs that had seen better days and a nuclear winter, the Sun came up and it wasn’t so bad. There were trees, they were sort of green, they’d adapted clearly. There was the stream running down the bank and around the town that disappeared under a still functional bridge. She could imagine this place had been quite pleasant once.

“So… this is an apocalypse huh.” He mused, looking around as he sipped his coffee and handed her the last half of the protein bar he’d stashed.

“I guess.” She replied, wondering what it was he expected.

“I always expected there’d be more Mad Max style shenanigans, suped out cars with metal spikes stuck all over and a bad attitude.” He shrugged. “This is just so… quiet.”

Sam smiled sadly. “The end of the world Sir was the noisy bit. Afterwards its always silence.”

“Profound Colonel.” He replied, looking oddly calm. “Well there’s still coffee and pork’n’beans so I guess it could be worse.”

As it turns out, the houses were something of a gold mine. They sifted through the rubble, pulling out flyers for what looked like some sort of underground bomb shelter. The company logo in fact appeared to be embossed in a few places over this town. “What the hell is Vault-tec?” He queried.

“Better question Sir is why is it in English, we don't visit many worlds anymore that speak or write in our language.” She pointed out the obvious that he’d possibly missed, or had chosen to ignore.

He sighed. “We see enough Carter, it's not that weird. Remember the Mongols, they spoke English just fine. The Goa'uld preferred it and we know the Ancient's seeded, Daniel wrote that whole paper over why English was all over the Galaxy for the French and Chinese delegates remember so....” he shrugged apparently willing to let it go as one of life's little oddities as he handed her the poster advertising the Fallout Shelter.

“You think the townspeople made it to this shelter before the bombs fell?” Sam asked as he fished what looked like a suitcase out of one of the rooms and began ramming stuff they'd collected into it. Including a couple more guns, some ammo and a chem box full of god knows what that Sam needed to look into.

“I think the people in this town dropped whatever the hell they were doing and up and ran.” He admitted and held triumphantly up what looked suspiciously like a bottle of alcohol. He removed the stopped with his swiss army knife and took a tentative sniff. “Woah.” he rocked back. “Whiskey... and it smells like the good stuff.” he exclaimed and Sam took the offered bottle, sniffing it before she hesitantly poured a small amount out to taste.

“I think your right. It seems fine.” she admitted with a small grin. “Well if nothing else we can get blind drunk.”

He snorted. And lifted his gun, trudging off into another room, she heard a thwack and a hiss and she darted after him with a startled exclamation of ‘Sir’ to see that he'd splatted another of those disgusting roaches with what looked like a baseball bat.

“Batter up.” Her CO grinned back at her, as she glanced at it, again that strange familiarity tugging at her. Baseball was a very _Earth_ game.

“We're definitely on another planet... right Colonel?” he asked after a moments pause reading her mind and eyeing the bat with the same concern she had. “I mean this isn't some freaky parallel Earth _thing_ is it… or you know time travel again?”

Sam shrugged nausea roiling in her gut at the idea, time jumps and parallel Earth's were a lot trickier to fix than a simple missed connection, even if it was by several thousand light years. “I can't say for sure, but I wasn't able to see the sky last night.” she stepped towards him and touched the bat, stroking the cedar wood gently.

“But I know what you mean, this 'samey-ness' thing is unnerving.” She remarked.

If this wasn’t Earth, then it was the closest approximation they’d have found out here yet. Which was unnerving because the Tok-Ra or the Asgard probably would have mentioned a near-Earth society. Although perhaps not if it had nuked itself 200 years ago, unless it was as a cautionary tale.

“Yep.” He replied popping the 'p' but not commenting further as he scooted the bug away with his foot as he unearthed a safe. “You want to do the honours?” He glanced at her and she quirked an eyebrow shaking her head, she was okay at lock picking but he was better and he knew it. He shrugged and pulled out a bobby pin he'd found in the sink cabinet and started fiddling with it.

Sam took a moment it afforded her to examine the contents of the box full of what seemed to be medicine they'd found. It had a heart logo and a heart trace on it which certainly suggested medical. She examined the bag of some sort of IV fluid 'RadAway', that seemed quite self explanatory but she was a bit more confused as to the purpose of the 'stimpak' or the tin of mints called 'mentats'. There was even a bunch of pills that had ‘Rad-X’ printed on them with a symbol on them which seemed to suggest that they were for resistance to radiation, which was more than handy. Although if this was an alien world taking alien medication was often more harmful than the actual thing causing the problem… unless it was Earth… in which case she had more to worry about than radiation.

“Anything useful?” he queried not looking back as he focused on his task.

“Possibly.” she replied, holding onto her excitement until she was sure this stuff wouldn’t kill them.

The General muttered, there was a click and the safe sprung open much to his surprised delight. “Hello.” He grinned and pulled out wads of what had to have been their paper money system, some preserved magazines... comics in fact if she was taking in the cartoon adventure images correctly, a bunch of ammo for what looked a lot like a 10mm handgun. He held up what she suspected might be grenades in the shape of baseballs, that he handled like he thought they were too.

“Jackpot!” he exclaimed and gave her the first genuine grin she'd seen from him since they landed here.

“Ditto. This is some kind of medicine I think.” she admitted pulling out the 'stimpak' that had the worlds largest damn syringe. Even Janet might have given that one a miss and she enjoyed sticking people with pointy things.

“You ‘aint sticking me with that.” He snapped reading her mind again. Stuffing what looked like a cargo bag he’d found full of the ammo and the couple of weapons they'd managed to find. 

A mechanical noise caught her ear and she shot up. Darting to the door her gun at the ready and glancing out in time to see something shiny and apparently flying go by. She indicated for him to get down as he stealthily darted behind the opposite wall to follow her line of sight.

_ROBOT._ She mouthed at him and his eyes widened before he made the kill gesture. She held her hand up telling him to wait. She knew how he felt about robots, but she needed intel. And who knew if this one was even hostile, it wouldn't be wise to attack before they had any idea what they were dealing with.

Taking a breath she darted out of cover and called out. “Hey!”

The flying robot turned, it was basically a giant ball with arms or appendages coming out of it everywhere and two eyes on metal stalks, that zeroed in on her and it drifted forward. It raised its one hand and a blow torch was unmistakably lit up.

“Woah, woah, we come in peace.” she announced backing up a bit and rethinking the General’s shoot first strategy. She had no idea if it was even capable of understanding her language or her weapon-less hands up gesture of surrender. Although there was still a rifle slung across her chest.

It's huge eyes blinked and it scanned her, then the house, she got the distinct impression that it could detect her CO behind the wall, probably using a heat sensor. “Sir, come out. It knows your there.” she instructed, he did, but kept his weapon friendly but ready just shy of pointing at the robot. He gave a half wave of hello.

The robot made a sound and a bunch of noises that sounded like gears crunching and made her wince. Sam shook her head, “I'm sorry we don't understand you, we're not from around here.”

There was a whirring sound, a bunch of clicking and then the robot fixed on her again. “Welcome Ma'am to Sanctuary Hills. Although I must admit it has seen better days, as have I, please forgive me my vocal processor was momentarily misaligned, it has been some time since I've been required to engage it.”

Sam blinked, and the General just about swore. “You speak English?” she asked in disbelief.

“American Ma'am it is the language of the United Federation of the Commonwealth.”

Sam blinked, her eyes shot to her CO who visibly seemed to slump at that news and gave her a grim nod in return to acknowledge. There was no way another Earth developed along so similar lines, enough to name a country that spoke their language 'America'. The chances of this however inexplicably, being a parallel Earth were looking more and more likely. Because Sam seriously doubted this was the future, the technology and ‘wrongness’ of everything spoke more of a parallel line of development than advancement.

“Oh but you simply must forgive my manners. I haven't had the chance to converse with someone for years. May I introduce myself, I am Codsworth Ma'am. Might you tell me your names?” He sounded like a posh English butler. It was kind of disturbing, there was literally nothing 'humanoid' in its appearance, but it clearly had a distinctive personality profile.

Sam stepped forward, trying a smile as the blowtorch clicked off and away as his floating ball of a metal body seemed to change from 'threatening' to something more.... compact and serene as she imagined he came down from a combat mode.

“I'm Colonel Samantha Carter,” she indicated Jack, “And this is General Jack O'Neill.” she introduced them, deciding to keep the ranks in.

He seemed to pause visibly drawing himself up. “Ah... military splendid, splendid. My former mistress was a proud soldier Ma'am, just like you. I do miss her and little Shaun terribly, the husband too on occasion. But those days are gone now. Poor things.” He sighed, sounding genuinely upset by the loss of its owners.

Sam hesitated. “We're, well we're not from around here, could you tell us what happened? To your Mistress and Shaun and this whole place?” she asked gently and this Codsworth practically lit up with clear excitement. Wow she thought, that was either some AI or a remarkable emotional emulation programme it had running.

“Oh Ma'am it would be my absolute pleasure to tell you. Were you also in a Vault perhaps... how fortunate to have missed this rather bleak world the rest of us have found ourselves in.” Codsworth declared and Sam blinked, bitterness in that statement, so it clearly had some emotional capacity, or at least the ability to emulate emotions. She wasn't sure what was worse, emotionless robots, or one that felt things, like being abandoned for 200 years on a dead planet... dead _Earth_ she corrected herself.

“A Vault.” The General queried eyebrow up and Codsworth turned an eye on him. “Oh yes a Vaul-tec invention, and private endeavour. In the advent of nuclear war, those selected and pre-arranged were to begin their new lives below ground. Safe from the devastation.”

“Is that where your Mistress and her family went?” Sam asked distracting it she hoped from the fact that they probably needed to pretend they were from the vaults. It might explain their lack of knowledge about this world.

“Oh yes. Vault 111. Just over the ridge there.” he turned and pointed into a hillside. “But sadly, she has not returned and I am afraid that I have simply not been able to keep 200 years of rust out of the house. She is going to be so very disappointed in me.”

Sam shared a look with her CO. He looked like he was going to regret the next words out of his mouth as he came to stand beside her, deciding this robot was clearly not too much of a threat. “So you've been stuck here... _cleaning_ all this time?”

The robot wailed, almost like it was crying and turned away, clearly ashamed. “I know, I know, I should have done a better job, but nothing gets Nuclear Fallout out of the tiles...” he sniffed. “I had hoped she'd be home by now, I know she and the family were admitted into the vault, but... well I have been waiting so very long now. Alone.”

Jack looked distinctly uncomfortable at the outpouring of emotion from the machine and winced. “Well. We're here now buddy.” He tried to pat the thing and failed to find a spot on his multi-armed body that looked safe and settled for a half salute instead.

It turned out that Codsworth was a veritable treasure trove of knowledge and he was more than happy to share. Whilst the General went through clearing out everything he could find of value from the other houses with her at his back, she took the opportunity to pick Codsworth's mechanical brains. Through him she quickly learnt about this US Commonwealth, about a history of war and division with China. Even before the bombs fell. The similarities to their world and seemed significant until a defining moment after World War II, from what she could tell there was no advent of the computer era, no microprocessors. From what she could piece together from Codsworth as they sat and shared a camp fire whilst her CO worked on securing the house, the transistor was never developed Codsworth had looked blankly at her as she'd explained its function. Large scale industrialisation reliant on oil raged on, the space race died in its infancy as unsustainable. The Resource Wars followed, Europe all but crumbling in the face of dwindling resources and unscrupulous Middle Eastern oil rich countries. Until Tel-Aviv was bombed in a terrorist attack and a plague ravaged America, prompting most countries to shut their borders, becoming insular once again. Apparently with the ever present threat of Cold War, that's when they started to build their fallout shelters across the US.

Nuclear Fusion became the resource of choice fuelling everything from watches to robots, even as the China/America war raged on over resources and control of the Alaskan pipelines. But it was the date of the 'Great War' as he'd called it that had left her cold and its abrupt end, on October 23, 2077. The bombs had fallen in two hours of insanity that ended the world. This wasn’t just a parallel world, it was slightly ahead of theirs… or they had a different calendar.

“Total Nuclear Annihilation.” Codsworth sighed. “Pity really, we were just getting going.”

Sam opened her mouth and struggled for words, what could you say faced with the stark reality of a world that almost was. 'There but for the Grace of God' indeed.

“Thought they had a term for that.” The General appeared, his figure dappled in firelight and she inhaled sharply, why the hell did he have to push her buttons so well, couldn't the man try to look rough even once? “Mutually Assured Destruction.” He shrugged. “Guess that wasn’t enough here to keep their hands from the big red button.” He considered their ‘backstory’ and decided to say nothing else after all technically this was ‘their’ Earth now too.

“Why don't you let Codsworth get some rest Carter, I could do with a hand repairing the roof.” She smiled at Codsworth thanking him for his time and the history lesson as she came to stand by the General, Codsworth gave a few pleasentries and flew of, the moment he was out of earshot, Jack grasped her wrist and she glanced up in surprise. “No more history lessons.” Her CO informed her coolly and she blinked, thrown.

“Sir, I don't...?” she opened her mouth to protest and he waggled his finger, his eyes on Codsworth as he zoomed off to check the perimeters for them.

“This isn't our Earth, it's not our USA, and he might like to talk your ear off, but he was built by people with an unhealthy fear of outside influence or did you miss that in his little _tale_. Anyone _other_ is the enemy. We are definitely _other_.” The General snapped, brooking no argument.

Sam nodded, swallowing. Trust Jack O’Neill to see their robot butler as a threat. But then he wasn't wrong. Codsworth had permitted her this morning a glance at his internal workings. Aside from the power core he was largely hydraulic and gear based with some heavy duty wiring behind an armoured shell. It worked, and for that she was frankly amazed. But it also meant he was as robust as a damn tank. She wasn't certain she'd want to tangle with him in a fight. At least they'd got no concept of an energy shield she considered with some relief.

“We're Vault dwellers.” he told her firmly, his fingers loosening as he let go of his hold on her and a part of her missed the feel of his large hand around her smaller wrist. He leant in close, brushing the hair beside her ear to rasp in it and send a shiver that she barely suppressed down her spine. “We've never been to the surface before and we didn't have any history books. Nothing more.” he told her pointedly.

Sam nodded her breath catching when she turned her head to see his, inches from hers, then he pulled back and she let it out. “Yes Sir.” She sighed. “Understood.”

“Good Colonel. Lets get to the roof shall we, then tomorrow maybe we can go see about exploring that area he thinks Vault 111 is.”


	3. The Vault

“Are you sure you don't want me to accompany you Sir, Ma'am?” Codsworth pressed looking anxious, if a machine could do that.

Jack smiled thinly at the thing. “We're good thanks.”

Carter gave him a 'play nicely' look and approached her new 'pet'. Asking it to stay behind and guard the house for them that they'd been fixing up. It was starting to look pretty good, the whole thing was built like a prefab. Entire wall structures could be taken from the surrounding buildings once he'd reinforced the ceiling. It wasn't a fortress but it could keep the radiation storms and most the critters out. 

“Anything worse than these damn giant bugs we need to worry about?” Jack asked Codsworth as he came to bid Carter farewell, she was clearly the robots preferred choice. Which suited Jack just fine, let her play with the robot. Although... given her track history with machines, maybe that wasn't wise. In their world there was a robot evil Carter running around, he didn't want her giving this thing ideas.

“I'm afraid so Sir. All manner of mutated horror might await you. This place some years back was frequented by Raiders but they weren't able to get in so they abandoned the efforts. Fortunately, we don't have the population here in Sanctuary to attract the Supermutants, not enough meat on my bones as it were.” he replied glibly and Jack's eyebrows arched.

“You do jokes?” he asked incredulously and Carter rolled her eyes that it wasn't the talk of Supermutants but that their new robot 'friend' had cracked a joke that had piqued his interest. Oh, he'd heard the word 'Supermutant' and decided he didn't want to touch that with a ten foot pole just yet, he had enough to worry about. 

“Merely a witty play on words Sir.” Codsworth admitted, sounding pleased. “If you like those I will register the preference.”

“You do that Codsy.” Jack replied going for the nickname and not being pushed back – so it was a keeper. Then he spun finger raised. “But no puns.... I hate puns.”

“And clichés.” Carter muttered under her breath and he shot her a look as she readied her weapon, but he was secretly pleased that he’d sunk deep into her psyche like that.  
“Shall we, Sir?” She pointed to the pass, clearly eager to get going, and silently mocking him he suspected at her smirk as she held her weapon ready. God damn if she didn't look good, it was an Apocalypse everything else was busted and looked like crap and in waltzed Carter looking like a million bucks.

“After you Colonel.” He indicated and took up the rear, pointedly not looking at her 'rear' as she made it up the steep incline ahead, however good the BDU's made her ass look. She was marrying another man for Christ sake, that ship had truly sailed.... unless they were stuck here. He felt slightly guilty at the grin that almost bought to his face and pulled up the camo bandana he'd found to cover his mouth, hiding his growing enthusiasm for this place where Perfect Pete wasn't. 

Carter noticed his choice of attire and didn’t comment, it wasn’t the only item of clothing they’d found in their explorations, including what looked like a 50s housewife pale blue dress fairly well preserved inside a safe with his bandana, which Carter had flat out refused to wear. Pity he'd of rather liked to see that, particularly as he knew off duty that she’d tended towards flowery skirts. But then… this wasn’t exactly off duty and her combats were probably better suited to trawling through the wastelands to a long abandoned underground nuclear fallout shelter. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to hang onto it though, he thought with a grin. Maybe after enough whiskey he might convince her to give him a twirl and give him a sight to keep him going another few months as he drifted off to sleep. After all, they’d been wearing the same damn clothes for the last few days, after hiking across terrain, they were going to have to change outfits soon. Or possibly wash the clothes in irradiated water… he wasn’t sure which was worse, dead people’s clothes or Uranium crud.

It didn't take them long to reach the area Codsworth had indicated. The gated entrance that had clearly once been some sort of razor wire had all but degraded and they kicked through it, heading up to an area that looked like a warzone. Carter all but exclaimed when they came across some sort of downed plane. He was mildly interested but called her back. The scientist in her momentarily overwhelming the soldier, a common enough occurrence and usually harmless, but he needed Colonel Carter right now, the Doctor would have to wait.

They came to stand together on what looked like a giant lift platform. “Reckon you can get power back to this thing?” he asked, certain if there was anything left of it then she could.

Carter nodded. “Yeah sure, ya betcha.” She grumbled and disappeared off into the control tower. He smirked, he liked it when she parroted his lines. He was feeling just a little too smug when he turned just in time to see the damn feral dog creeping up on him. He barely had enough time to get his sidearm up and got two rounds into its skull barely keeping the things jaws from his face. He lay there panting, adrenalin coursing through him as he mentally checked himself for injuries and found nothing hurting.

“I'm fine!” he barked throwing the body off himself as he heard Carter's footfalls coming up behind, she glanced at the remains of the dog.  
“Keep a look out, dogs in the wild tend to come in packs.” he instructed and he watched the set of her shoulders, this was why they made such a good team, he'd missed this. Half the officers he dealt with now were great airmen but they didn't have the years of breaking into his command style she did, being able to read each other when the shit hit the fan was going to be an incredible asset out here. Plus the genius thing she had going... he imagined that helped.

Carter kept her weapon out placing it in reach of what looked like a computer terminal that she'd found. A giant one albeit. “That a computer?” He queried taking up a guard position whilst she worked. 

“Yep.” She grinned and his heart did that ridiculous little lurch thing it had been doing for years when she gave him her full megawatt one. Why the fuck did she have to look like that? Couldn't she look like a normal nerd. Not that he usually complained, but it was damn distracting out here, alone, with no Airforce in existence to remind him of the rules he'd sworn to live by and the fiancé waiting back home for her. He supposed he had Kerry waiting, but they'd started that with a very casual acceptance of what it was between them, just a bit of fun really and a warm body to drown out the Carter shaped hole in his chest. She wouldn't be waiting for him, not like perfect Pete. Hell he'd probably be banging on the doors at congress trying to get a full Presidential Order to go after Carter... which, yeah okay he understood that, had done it himself. 

Damn Pete, stupid ass-hat he groused uncharitably as he always did when his name popped up in his thoughts.

“Cool.” he coughed and covered his little mental wander, returning to the task at hand pretending not to notice her quizzical expression of his little lapse. He just had to get it through his thick head... both of them in fact that the 'ol ship' Carter/O'Neill had long since sailed and he'd well and truly missed the boat. It was just usually easier to do when they barely saw each other at work anymore and she generally stood ramrod straight when his stars came into view and snapped him a salute as crisp as the day he’d met her. He was hoping that would get old for her, but so far 6 months of stars and it was like all the careful edges he’d warn down on her were back.

The sound of gears grinding got his attention and he looked up as she slammed her hand onto a big red button. “Get on, Sir.” She insisted and he followed quickstepping over to the lift platform that was beginning to rumble. Apparently she was smarter than the average raider that had tried and failed to gain entry... which was good news. Not entirely unexpected but good. He wasn't the least bit surprised that she'd managed to get it working though.

“Nice job Carter.” he offered and grinned when she gave him the megawatt smile again. Damn it, twice in one day. He hastily examined his gun, so maybe he still had an issue in that he probably wasn't over his 2IC. Who was he kidding, he'd never be over her. Carter wasn't the type of woman you got over, she was the type you clung onto for dear life and thanked god for the ride. Unless you were a stupid old fool ... like he was, and didn't get a grip to begin with. He'd been noble, he'd done his duty and he was alone and miserable watching the woman he loved disappear from his life and desperately clinging to the idea that ‘he was happy if she was happy’. Which had become his party line. Or at least it had been... he swallowed thickly, it was all kinds of wrong to be a little bit pleased that she was stuck here with him, an entire reality away from Pete and the Airforce regulations.

He stared over at her and felt the smallest of smiles quirk his lips… oh yeah he was going to hell for sure, this was just extra weight to drag him under.

The lift went down for what seemed like forever making an unholy racket as he glanced up and watched the roof mechanism slide over the hole trying to make sure that none of his current thoughts were on his face. He'd gotten good at hiding his feelings for her, even from himself, but she could read him like no one else. She knew how he felt... he was certain of it. It just wasn't enough for her, apparently Sam had wanted the whole nine-yards, complete with picket fence, dog and doting husband. Not that he blamed her, hell he’d been happy with that ideal too once, before he’d broken it, but this thing between them, all the unspoken it was all they’d been allowed and for him any bit of her had been enough.

Carter cleared her throat drawing his attention, he got the impression he might have missed an earlier question.  
“It's all in surprisingly good working order Sir. Honestly, I doubt our technology would have held up nearly so well after all this time.” She spoke, mostly to fill the dead air he thought and he nodded with a smile. She'd stopped feeling the need to fill the dead air with him years ago... he wasn't happy to see that habit return, she’d felt the need the other night too. He missed the companionable silence they’d managed off world during shift exchange as they’d shared a coffee, staring out at an alien world, content that the other had their back. But then he supposed it might have been the situation, being stranded was a hell of a lot different to a night with a known dial home time waiting when you thinking of idle conversation.

She was clearly expecting some form of answer, so he fell back on his usual defence mechanism to hide what he was really thinking.  
“Hey, I'm just glad it's a bunker. We practically live in a bunker, I can put my faith in one of those.” He replied with a grin and she gave him what he hoped was a fond rather than exasperated look as he lifted his gun and held it trained on the exit as they came to a halt on the ground level.  
“I reckon that was what, 150-200 feet maybe.” She nodded concurring.  
“Sweet.” He breathed in a lungful of air glancing at the turbines which were still going.

Carter clearly caught his surprised look. “Nuclear powered Sir. If this thing is still operational it'll run forever.”

He accepted that information gratefully, he'd been half convinced they'd suffocate down here, although it didn't look like a fat lot else was on. The entrance to the vault reminded him a lot of Cheyenne mountain. There were checkpoints, metal grates, towering computer systems, the Vault door looked like a giant cog, more like a bank vault he supposed than a base, but then that was clearly where they’d got the name.  
“I feel strangely at home.” he murmured and she nodded looking around.

“I know, it’s eerie.” Carter added finally, coming to stand beside him her flashlight hovering on the huge vault door, which unless she found a way to access they weren’t getting in.

“Place seems abandoned.” He commented, not sure if he’d been expecting a welcoming committee of Vault dwellers hidden away down her for two centuries or not as he looked around. He spotted the undeniable remains of a couple of dead bodies, preserved enough to still have easily identifiable skeletons and clothing, which meant no one had been down here in a long time. He stepped over to them, his eyes sweeping over and assessing with practiced dissociation at the general feeling of lifelessness in here. If he was honest with himself, he’d almost expected this, given the state of the upstairs he hadn’t held out much hope of finding a bunch of healthy happy people tucked in tight down here.

“Oh wow!” Carter exclaimed and he turned surprised by her outburst in the still air, which if he was honest felt kind of like a mausoleum to see her standing over one of the skeletal corpses.

He frowned and approached, glancing at the skeleton, in what clearly looked like a lab coat, surprised she'd exclaim about it, it was sadly hardly the first skeletal remains they'd come across in their time here, or on SG1. Then she bent down and slipped something off his wrist and he grimaced as he realised of course she was exclaiming about a bit of tech... not the body... God this woman pushed his buttons in the good way. Except it used to be the bad way, as in the look but don't touch, and probably don't look either in case your too tempted. Now though, she was like a ray of sunshine in the fucking gloom of nuclear winter. 

That thought filtered through the general crap that was in his head right now and he realised he was utterly doomed. He needed to find a way to get his head in the fucking game, or something out here would tear it off for him.

“Looks like a really big watch.” He pointed out the obvious having no idea what he was looking at, certain she'd correct him. Sometimes he asked questions just to get her to take the time to talk to him. He suspected she knew that, but she'd never said, nor displayed the slightest sign that it was an annoyance, or inconvenience. 

She examined it closely, blowing the dust off the surface and reading the logo. “It’s something called a Pip Boy.”

“What like a GameBoy?” he replied getting a little excited about the prospect of something to pass the time and occupy his thoughts rather than her.

“Or a laptop.” Carter added cutting off his grin and like she was born to it, turned the damn thing on and snapped it around her wrist.

“Woah!” he exclaimed darting forward, his urge to protect surging to life, it was what he did after all. And that looked like a dumb move, he could say that from experience, snapping alien stuff to you, whether it was your head, wrist, chest, etc, never ended well.  
“For crying out loud Colonel!” He grabbed her forearm and turned the thing backwards and forwards, jostling it a little and relieved to see it would easily come away. He still gave her a sharp look getting in her face and not letting go of her arm.  
“Do I need to remind you about the last time we snapped an alien device to our wrists?” He glowered, hiding concern with anger. Okay there was anger there too, but she was just so damn impulsive at times. It was as frustrating as the times she was too damn cautious, and he wasn’t sure which he found worse.

She smirked clearly finding his overprotectiveness amusing. “If I recall we got superpowers and took down Apophis’ ship.” She saw the irritation bloom on his features. “Okay so we nearly died.”

“And the whole Z'atarc follow up crap.” He reminded and stopped abruptly, that was dangerous ground for them. It would lead to back to just why their memories had been called in to question and just how unprofessional his behaviour had been on that day. But then it hadn’t really been a revelation for him, he’d known he’d been compromised by Carter for a long damn time. Right about when her eyes glowed and no way no how was he letting anyone shoot her or escape off through a gate with her until he’d ripped the snake out of her head. Strategic advantage or intel be damned. That had been 6 years ago and his thoughts on the matter had only gotten stronger.  
He cleared his throat, almost clearing the air and quashing those memories of simpler times almost, when he thought he’d got this thing under control. “Carter... is that even safe? I mean if I understand you correctly when you say what type of battery all their tech uses, did you just strap a nuclear reactor to your wrist?”

“Yep.” she deadpanned and ignored him as she began fiddling with buttons. She glanced up noticing his silent glare and relented, rolling her eyes.  
“It’s perfectly safe… Sir.” She added that honourific as an afterthought, her snark showing through as she practically rolled her eyes at him.  
“Look it’s shielded,” she showed him something he suspected was supposed to prove that on the back, he mostly saw a big ass lead plate, “and it’s a controlled fusion reaction. Honestly its really quite incredible. Oh wow!” She stopped rambling to exclaim as she found something.  
“Sir I don't know how but this thing has a GPS mapping system. Local range only, probably high atmosphere positioning rather than satellites given their space race never got off the ground.” He nodded taking that in but not really seeing how helpful that was given as they had nowhere especially to be and he let his eyes scan the area around them once more given as her eyes were on her new toy.  
“It also monitors my vitals... huh, apparently I have some minor radiation poisoning, big surprise. Oh, It’s recommending I purge to clear it from my system, it's displaying a suggestion, that RadAway IV pack we found, Sir I think that might actually be the real deal.” She offered sounding suddenly far cheerier than she had.

He blinked and glanced back at her. “They can cure radiation poisoning?” He was suddenly interested.

She shrugged. “I don’t know about cure it, but it seems like they have something that can either soak up its effects or prevent its more damaging aspects.” She paused and looked at him head on, her cheeks looking a bit more coloured than he’d seen them, granted the prospect of radiation poisoning and the slow miserable death that offered hadn’t been making him a barrel of laughs either.  
“I mean if you think about it, it makes sense, their whole society was built around nuclear power, they’d need to find some way to deal with the literal 'fallout'. Plus from the dates Codsworth gave me they are potentially over 70 years ahead of us technologically, when the bombs fell… 200 more if there’s anyone still alive and who has access to the old research.”

He took that in with something like relief. “Huh. So maybe my hair won't fall out after all.” She gave him a look and he shrugged.  
“What... I have great hair!” He grumbled running his hand up and through it, smirking at her eye roll and snort as she turned back to her device.

“I'd be more worried about your balls dropping off if I were you.” She snarked and there was a pause where he almost gaped. “Sir.” she added with enough smarm to make him laugh briefly. He briefly rearranged his junk, not quite checking but close. 

“Yes well... let’s not digress shall we, my balls are fine thank you very much.” he bit back.

She got that glint in her eye as she looked up at him for a moment, “Apparently so.” If he'd been a school girl he might have blushed as it was he just cocked an eyebrow at her. She glanced back down smirking.  
“It seems to have some sort of localised scanning function. Sir.” She added, doing that thing where she justified her smart mouth.  
“It's relaying information about you to me. Apparently your fertile, with a higher than average resistance to energy weapons and slightly lower resistance to radiation exposure than me, and it's identified your knees as a weak spot for tactical blunt force trauma injury.”

Jack glanced down at himself than up at the harmless looking device that had apparently just violated his unmentionables.  
“My fertile balls aside… why’s it picking on my knees, those were fixed!” He declared irritably, but she merely shrugged, not even attempting to hide her smirk.

“It has combat strategy. Apparently I should attempt dislocation. Or forcing you to over extend.” She continued on cheerfully and he placed a hand over his balls as a shield and flexed his knees feeling the need to justify his scores on that thing.

“Reckon those things are common? Cause I'm not sure I like the entire bloody Apocalyptic Wasteland knowing I've got weak knees.”

“And fertile balls…” He caught her whispering under her breath and she looked up innocently at him shaking her head, finally pulling herself out of her new doohikey to focus on him to note his actual tension and unease about it, her expression sobered from teasing to factual in a heartbeat.  
“Sorry, Sir. I highly doubt their common no, these look almost experimental based on the coding. Rudimentary, albeit powerful. Their computers are a bit like the Atari with all the processing power of one of our digital watches.”

He took that in. “So what, Donkey Kong... but no Halo?”

She smirked. “Something like that Sir.” He was mildly impressed she’d got the reference, she’d never been much for his and T’ealc’s video game nights.

He shook his head in mild disbelief, taking in a civilisation that had been able to create a structure like this, cure radiation poisoning and pack a wrist band with the power to tell he had energy resistance, crappy knees and fertile balls, but hadn't mastered the art of computers like they had. Weird. But Carter seemed happy enough with this, now that she had her little nuclear doodad on her arm. He personally wasn't fond of her wearing it but he figured the risk was no more than breathing in the air on this place. After all they had found ways around the radiation, Codsworth had stockpiled a butt load of canned purified water (they didn’t do bottles of things it seemed with their advanced preservation materials), he’d been keeping them in case his Mistress returned but had been more than happy to share with them. It was one of the reasons Jack suspected he'd helped them, with the hopes that they'd get into the Vault and find out if she was indeed alive. He glanced around the skeletal bodies and general abandoned nature of the vault. He wasn't holding his hopes out for anyone alive down here.

"Does that fancy gadget happen to have a way to open the huge Vault door in it?" He snipped. Sam smirked and approached a console, a huge lead snapped to her wrist later a few button pushes and that big ass vault door was sliding open with a creaking and shaking that suggested it hadn't been opened in a hell of a long time.

"Onwards then." he muttered and pointed his rifle and flashlight into the entryway as lights began to flicker on, illuminating a concrete corridor. "Just like back home."

They made it further into the facility, there were a couple of the damn roaches in one hallway and around what Carter informed him were the reactors... he'd been inclined to leave that room alone, particularly given the fact there was a green glowing Roach in the middle. Of course she'd wanted to study it, apparently the bloody thing was emitting radiation, not just mutated by it. He'd had to actually drag her out. They'd gone down a few levels and come across the jackpot so to speak. 

“Cryogenic tubes.” Carter whistled. “Well that's one way to wait out a nuclear apocalypse.”

Jack winced and she gave him a look. “Sorry. Forgot you've had the pleasure of these things.” he rolled his eyes, several times in fact, both Ancient, Asgard and Goa'uld just to round off his hatred and general feeling that these things were nothing but trouble. Even if all three designs had at one point or another managed to save his damn life.

He approached one and wiped the ice off the viewing window glancing inside.  
“Crap.” He muttered as she approached the control panel and antiquated computer system. He shook his head at her questioning look.  
“Frozen popsicle.” He grimaced. “This one didn't make it.” He approached the next one. Hesitant now as he wiped off the glass.  
“Not good.” he added,  
“They look preserved though, but I'm seeing flatlines on the device and frostbite.” He called back to her.

Carter was squinting her head at the device. “They're all dead Sir.” she pulled back glumly.  
“Some sort of external error. Power failure most likely, essentially the plug got pulled on them all at exactly the same time.” She looked up at him and he grimaced.

“Accident?”

“I'm not sure.” As usual she reserved judgement until she had all the data. They found it in the next cryogenic room. There was an open tube. Carter headed for the console whilst he examined it.

“I found her.” She called out and he stood taking in the dead body in front of him, probably the only one not frozen to death, this one had been shot in the chest by a small calibre bullet, her pod wide open. He wasn't a biologist, but he thought the skeleton looked female. 

“Yeah, I think I did too.” Jack admitted and she came to stand beside him a few moments later staring down with a dark look on her face. 

“Someone sabotaged all these pods. They interrupted the power as they were all interlinked so that they could extract the baby, Shaun. It was the only accessed data file before my attempt, and the only pod opened.” Carter explained.  
“She was with him, I'm guessing they didn't need her.” She pointed to the opposite pod. “That was the husband, he suffocated in his sleep inside the tube like the rest when the power shut off. Guess they didn’t feel the need to bother to restore power or couldn’t.” She commented sounding disgusted with whoever had done this and their casual disregard for life.

Jack grimaced, feeling the sharp pain of a parent's loss, he knew intimately the feeling of grief and failure and self-loathing that poor woman must have felt as she lay dying, having experienced it himself, at least it would have been quick bullet through the heart like that. “This world sucks Carter.” He told her quietly.

She nodded. “Yes Sir....” She came to stand next to him and ‘not’ look at the body.  
“They took him about 25 years ago. There's the chance he's still alive. The people that took him were certainly surviving out here, and the first evidence of any human population left; they were organised and skilled. Clearly driven with enough information to know there was a child in this pod.”  
“They sound like bastards, the kind of people I'd tend to avoid Carter.” Jack pointed out. “You want to go looking for them?” He asked thinking he'd interpreted her correctly from her slightly defiant look.

“Not specifically, but we can keep our eyes and ears open. I have a name, from the access log, Kellogg. There was a video file, I saw the perpetrators face, granted it was 25 years ago, but its something.”

Jack reached up and placed a hand on her arm. “Carter. I get it, its a kid or he was if he's even still alive, but we gotta look out for ourselves right now!” He admitted, squeezing her arm and hating that he had to be the bad guy here and pull her back on track, but he'd be damned if he was going to lose her on some fool hardy chase across the continent for a man, stolen as a child. He wasn't about to be stuck on this nightmare world without her, that would be the end of him. 

“I know, I know... Sir.” she snapped and shrugged him off, clearly annoyed with him as she stalked away her back stiff and he resigned himself to the cold shoulder for the next hour or so whilst she worked it through. She was good like that, she didn't tend to let her anger fester... like he did. Any other time he might have called her up for insubordination with that, but now wasn’t the time, or place for it. Besides, he understood her feelings perfectly on this, he felt just as sickened by it.

He caught up with her and followed in terse silence as they entered what looked to have been an office.  
“Overseer.” he glanced at the still glowing sign. “Even sounds pretentious.” He muttered heading for the private quarters and rummaging around in the drawers for anything useful; whilst Sam stepped around the skeleton of what he assumed was the former occupant slumped over his desk, dead where he sat, and appropriated his computer from him. He emerged with a grin and waved some fancy blue Vault 111 suits at her, still in their original packaging, there was a whole trunk of the suckers, along with some fetching sweater vests he’d wear just about never… except maybe at the end of the world, so he was kind of in luck, I mean who the hell was even going to see him?

“What are they?” She asked, glancing up shortly, her eyes taking in the unusual fabric before they slid back to the computer screen.

“Look like some sort of environmental suits, skin-tight, kind of snazzy really. I’m betting their thermo-regulated by the looks of them. Fancier than anything else I’ve seen.” Jack added and stuffed them into the military rucksack he’d also found. Not mentioning that seeing Sam in skin-tight blue, might be worth the trip down here on its own.

“There’s a bed in there, shower too. Water still works.” He added, having tested it out. 

She glanced up at him and then back down at the monitor. “Water processing plant, it’s automated, draws water from the river up top and purifies it, even of the radiation.” She admitted, “We should bottle it. I’ll down load the specs see what I can work out for Sanctuary, could be that we can tap into it. That or we set up shop down here.” She added but the idea of staying down her longer than necessary seemed to have lost its appeal, she was looking distinctly more pissed with every passing moment. He filed that away for now. Wondering how she might respond to him giving serious consideration to using the shower facilities. He was starting to stink.

She looked up and obviously caught him looking longingly at it as she crossed to see what he was staring at.

“Seriously?” she questioned. He shrugged.

“They have clean towels.” He explained as if that should be reason enough to make use of it, and he pointed to the drawer that he’d found a neatly folded stack of white ones perfectly preserved inside the drawer in the sealed vault. Which was so eerily creepy that he didn’t want to think about it too hard.  
“Besides we have no idea when we might get the chance again. And I have no interest in bathing in irradiated river water, thank you very much.”

Sam sighed. “Are you asking me if its safe?” He blinked, he didn’t know, he almost felt like he’d been asking for permission… which was odd given their relative positions and ranks, but that was starting to blur with the enforced domesticity of their lives at the moment and he swallowed rubbing his hand through his hair nervously. He had been asking permission he realised grimly, knowing it would irk her if she had to stay down here longer than necessary for something so apparently frivolous.

“Is it?” he asked, deciding to take the out she’d given him on their apparently slipping command structure.

“I’d let it run for a few minutes if I was you. Sir.” She replied adding that last bit almost pointedly and disappeared back out to her computer. He rolled his eyes and trying not to feel slightly excited by the prospect got the shower going with minimal fuss, faintly startled when it came on first time, pipes made a bit of a banging as they forced water through them but it spluttered out looking clean. He waited deciding that he’d wash the clothes in here too, he’d insist Carter did the same if she objected, they needed to take little wins like this whilst they good and staying clean out here might help them stave off illness.

He emerged about ten minutes later having even found soap and toothpaste. He’d actually found a box of toothpaste and soaps in the bathroom cabinet so he’d stuffed those into his bag to be used sparingly, having scrubbed his teeth with a weirdly strawberry flavoured tasting amount on his finger until the furriness he’d felt on his tongue had gone. They’d need to raid the vaults storeroom as soon as they could find it he realised, if no one had been down here (apart from the murdering kidnappers) then perhaps it was all still there. Clearly they’d been well stocked down here, it could be a literal gold mine.

He pulled on one of the larger sized nifty blue vault suits, zipping it up the front and taking a look in the mirror. Actually it wasn’t half bad, even if he did look a bit like a crazed cyclist. He wrung out the wet clothes he’d managed to scrub clean and wrapped the wet clothes inside a dry towel and stuffed them into his bag too. 

“Carter!” he called. She appeared a moment later, doing a double take at his outfit.

“Wow.” Was all she managed, but he didn’t think he imagined the faint blush of colour it bought to her cheeks as she scanned him over almost subconsciously, lingering on his ass a moment more than was professional. He suppressed a smirk. ‘Still got it’.

“Yeah. Surprisingly comfy.” He replied. Slipping his boots back on and pulling out the trench coat he’d found which looked big enough to drown him. He tossed her a vault suit and a leather jacket that looked to be for a much smaller man or woman, that he’d found in a giant safe in sanctuary and had kept with her in mind. Maybe he was becoming a bit of a packrat out here. She caught them deftly looking them over with mild interest. “Your turn. Get cleaned up, that’s an order Colonel.” He told her brooking no argument. Her eyebrow raised and she nodded.

“Yes sir.” She replied, sounding less than impressed and he pointed to the towel and soap he’d left out and the toothpaste beside it. Her eyes alighted on that particular item with a grin.

“Is that toothpaste!” She exclaimed suddenly enthusiastic about the idea and he did grin then.

“This is a gift Carter, we can’t afford to waste it.” He replied, and she nodded, looking up at him slightly more contrite. But he understood, she still seemed to have her head half on planning how to get them out of this, that considering the short term in the here and now was falling to him.

He disappeared out to give her some privacy and found another cabinet with ‘security’ on the front. He pulled out what looked like body armour, it was sleek and he realised it was clearly designed to go over the vault suits. He was starting to suspect that people hadn’t carried much weight in this alternate Earth, even before the apocalypse because everything was slim fitting. 

He busied himself sorting through the various cupboards and trunks that were in here. It seemed the Overseer had been a packrat too, that or this was where confiscated contraband ended up. He pulled out several cartons of cigarettes and a gleaming bottle of whiskey to go with the vodka he’d already found, they clinked together in his bag. Like Carter said, at least they could get blind drunk one of these nights. Or just enjoy the occasional splash of normalcy he considered. Morale was going to be a problem here. It wasn’t just the emptiness of the place, but the apocalypse of it, the wasted buildings and rotten animals that was a constant reminder of what this place wasn’t. What it had lost.

Carter emerged towelling off her hair and whilst her head was down, he took a moment to let his jaw almost hit the floor. The damn suits were impressive it had moulded to her body shape like a second skin. And damn… that was some shape. He hastily looked away as she bought her head up and handed him her wet clothes. He wrapped them up and tossed them into his bag.

“Okay, that might have been one of your better ideas…Sir.” She pointed out and he risked his expression being under control as he looked up and kept his eyes fixed on a face and not the rest of her that he was desperately trying not to ogle. 

“I know right.” He grinned, “Blue suits you.” He commented, which was about the only thing he felt he could safely say.

Carter gave him a look that suggested she knew where his mind had gone anyway. “Not sure about strawberry toothpaste though… who does that?” There was a laughter in her eyes now and they shared a smile for a moment. “Thank you for the Jacket.” She added, slipping the thing over the top which should have covered up some of the suit but instead seemed to just highlight the curves of her hips and her acres long legs. He blinked, realising his eyes had wandered without his permission. He hastily stood, feeling a stirring where he shouldn’t and set his eyes on the weapons cage he’d been waiting for her to come out before he explored.

He approached it and let out a in the far corner of the room and he let out a slow whistle at the fancy looking ray gun inside. “Oh yes.” He all but salivated behind the mesh, eyeing the padlock.  
“Anything about what this thing is in that computer, before I bust it out of there?”  
He heard her start typing away on the computer she’d been at before he’d insisted she make use of the facilities.

“It's called a Cryolater.” Sam called over to him and he glanced back examining the lock, he had no idea what that meant. She waited a beat. “A Feeze-ray.” She added giving him some residual attitude and he grinned, pleased despite her sarcasm.

“Excellent.” he rasped like old Burnsy as he got to work on the lock... “Honestly this lock and tumbler system thing they’ve got going is a serious security issue, they would have probably killed for the digital locks we use or the biometric ones.” He added as an afterthought and grinned as the lock clicked open. He was clearly getting better at this because that one had been a four tumbler. He reached in and picked up the huge gun and the ammo, lifting it in his arm he chanced a look at Carter but she was ignoring him. She'd probably faun over it later, when she was less irate.

“The Overseer was an asshole.” Sam replied suddenly and he let out a sigh, maybe she wasn’t cooling off after all then. “And a sociopath… which might explain the strawberry toothpaste.” She quipped and he glanced up at her, but she looked more upset than amused.  
“In fact,” she muttered sounding truly annoyed now, “I'm starting to suspect that this entire Vault-tec was some sort of conspiracy to study the general population... some grand social experiment whilst they literally had a captive audience.” She straightened up and in a move that surprised him for its sudden violence, she actually picked up the handset telephone that was sat there next to the computer and threw it bodily against the wall behind to smash with a resounding crash. Jack suspected she’d have quite liked to do that to the computer and this had been her compromise. The computer after all would still be useful.  
“Sick bastard!” She spat with feeling at the remnants of plastic and metal splintered on the floor around her.

Jack waited a beat, Carter wasn’t usually one to overreacting or emotional outbursts, not unless it was something big. But then they were both on edge and this place was giant tomb now, so perhaps an emotional outburst was to be expected.  
“Not a fan then?” Jack offered tentatively, regretting slightly having pissed her off earlier today as he hid his knew fancy ray gun behind his back fearing she might take her mood out on his new toy. Or his fertile balls…

“They'd not tested the damn cryo-pods.” She hissed running her hand through her hair and all but turning on the spot in a small circle.  
Everyone here was a Guinea pig, different variations in each chamber mix. And the callous way he talks about losing 'batches' like they aren't people.” She grit out and dropped her head and bowed over the desk hands balled into fists as she tried to decompress. Jack could relate, he'd kind of been feeling the urge to rage and smash something up for a few days now.  
“No wonder they committed mutiny and ran out on him.” Sam added quietly.

Jack approached slowly and took in the skeletal remains still sat at the desk, his skull caved in. “Looks like he got what was coming to him.” He commented, feeling slightly less guilty about having ransacked the guys stuff and used his shower. Carter glared at him, apparently it was the wrong thing to say. He sucked in a breath waiting for an explosion and deciding to press on before it came.  
“So… lets go shall we. I've had just about as much depressing end of the world, humans suck ass crap as I can take for today.” He didn't mean to make it an order but it often came out that way, he'd been her CO for too long, it was hard to switch it off. Or maybe he did, hell he didn’t know anymore. For a moment he thought he saw concern flicker across her features, her blue eyes darkening with emotion... which he couldn't deal with right now. So he dropped her gaze and stalked away in the direction of the door she'd just opened. So maybe he was being chicken shit, but today was making him feel all kinds of 'no way no how'. Abuse of power always got to him that way.

They returned to Sanctuary (as Codsy had called it) and Jack let Carter tell him the bad news, they had the rapport after all. He mostly just fixed stuff up for them right now, wanting to create a safe space at least. He'd even managed to start some vegetable planting on an area he'd cordoned off in the back garden. It seemed to be growing fine out in the wastelands so why not here and he'd always had a knack for gardening, a fact that never ceased to amaze his team when he revealed it. 

His first project today though was to construct a basic privy which was more of a pressing concern than anything else, that could double up as a composter for the garden. There was even a loo seat he’d retrieved from one of the houses, that he managed to scrub up into something passable and construct a wooden setup for it. He was just adding a bunch of leaves and sawdust he’d had Codsworth working on grinding down for him when Carter appeared, he seated the huge bucket he’d found securely and finished attaching the door with the hammer and not quite yet blunt nails. Lucky really that one of these old houses had a cellar workshop really. Nothing had been too badly rusted through down there and was still passable.

“Nice job.” Sam admired the wooden door which he’d took off one of the houses, her hand smoothing over it.

“Bathroom’s are apparently a speciality of mine.” He replied. “Sadly this would be the fourth, no… fifth time I’ve had to build myself a privy.” He sighed at her somewhat incredulous look… “Twice with Stargate program when I’ve been caught short and billions of light years away from plumbing. And twice in some shit hole on Earth usually the jungle, occasionally the desert.” He admitted. 

“Actually, that would make it three times with the Gate program Sir, counting this one.” She smirked at his look of exasperation. “Not that I’m complaining, I’ll take this any day over a hole in the ground. Thank you.” She smiled genuinely at him this time and he nodded, feeling a small swell of pride at her clear appreciation for his work.

“Well you’re a darn sight more appreciative of my latrine bulding skills than Maybourne was.” He muttered, “But he had gone nuts that one time, so you know. Best not to share with a crazy man, eating plants all the damn time anyway.” He smirked at her mostly uneasy look at that trip down memory lane, which he knew she still blamed herself for too.  
“Anyway,” he changed the subject, “This baby will help the garden too.” He added, glancing at where he was starting a vegetable plot from the various veg he’d found growing around the place and some seeds he’d filched from the Vaults Atrium and what had clearly once been a hydroponic garden. There was something he thought might have been a carrot 200 years ago, and a tomato maybe… and some weird version of an apple tree he’d re-planted when he’d found it in the centre of town. There was also a few packets labelled corn and razorgrain he was saving for a rainy day once he was sure he could get them going.

“Your kind of a homebody, aren't you Sir.” Carter offered gently and he glanced back, there was a soft smile on her face which meant she wasn’t actually teasing, if anything she looked faintly impressed, but the humour wasn’t reaching her eyes he noticed.

“How'd the Bot take it?” he asked and she crossed her arms. A warning if he ever saw one.

“Codsworth’s upset obviously,” she really emphasised the name to make him feel like an asshole for pretending he wasn’t anything other than a thing.  
“But he’s more disappointed I think, and clearly concerned about the baby, or the man Shaun is now I guess, if he’s alive. He's asked us to keep an eye out for him. He also told me that our best bet on any information would be a place called Diamond City.”

“City?” Jack perked up, coming to stand closer, and ending up closer than he'd expected when she turned into him her face inches from his in the dim light so she could see him better. The familiarity of it like a comforting balm as she spoke, her eyes alighting slightly with the prospect of discovery. Carter was the secret adrenaline junky of the team... well it was a badly kept secret if he was honest, far too many airmen for his liking had seen her rock up in her biker leathers having spent the morning roaring up and down the backroads around Colorado on her Indian. This place was getting her all riled up, the prospect of adventure clearly. 

“Or what passes for a City these days.” She shrugged. “We're in Boston Jack.” he blinked in shock, not from the familiar location, but from the soft 'Jack' coming out of her lips. God it did things to his insides when she said his name. A bit like when she said Sir... when she absolutely meant 'go to hell'.

“Diamond City...” he mused not commenting on her slip, whether deliberate or not. “Huh. Baseball town. So I'm guessing there's people there?”

“Maybe. Codsworth thinks it’s a few days walk from here,” She looked down and showed him her arm band, “He's plotted a route for us.” Jack grimaced, he was all for using available resources but Carter had a habit of trusting robots, which never seemed to end well. Although maybe after this last stint with Fifth and his blow-up twin of her, she’d be cured of that bad habit.  
“So weekend destination holiday it is.” Jack rubbed his hands together feigning enthusiasm. He was just getting settled here. Christ even as he listened to himself he realised how old he sounded. Something must have given him away because she chuckled.

“It's just a couple of days... Sir.” she bit out playing the word affectionately, as though there wasn't anything wrong with that. “Then you can come back and play with your rosebushes to your hearts content.” she took that cheap shot and wandered off into the backroom and he shook his head.

“Carrot patch actually!” he barked after her. “And you won't be getting any soup if you’re not supportive of my hobbies!” He teased and he heard her chuckle, which made him grin before it slid off his face. Of course, there was nothing hobby about it, they needed to eat to live. Which meant back to basics, farming, scavenging, trading. Apparently, the currency was bottle caps... he supposed it made sense, they were available but limited, it meant they were a commodity. Although Codsworth did mention that some of the old pre-war money they'd found in the vault might work, he'd once traded for parts with a trading caravan for old cash like that. Jack though was taking no chances, if it looked like it used to be useful, then it probably could be sold or bartered. He had bags full of junk now that he'd haul across his back to Diamond City tomorrow to try his luck. 

He was kind of anxious to meet the locals, see what exactly 200 years in the nuclear wasteland had done to humanity. He didn't imagine it was pretty based on the state of the animals. Then there was Carter... Sam. He'd yet to call her by her name, taking that step would push him fully out of CO mode and right now he needed to be reminded of why he wasn't supposed to want to hear her call him Jack again. But there was no way around the fact that Carter was a trouble magnet looking the way she did. So much so that SG1 had an unwritten rule, if it looked like a fertility festival, solstice, hell even a plain old fashioned party, one of them was to claim her as their 'mate/wife/insert whatever honorific' that meant she wasn't to be taken, traded, raped, sacrificed, or worshipped. Although he'd sort of thought she'd made a perfect Sun Goddess that one time. His team had learnt the hard way early on with Turgen. Coupled with Carter's little knack for making heart-sick little aliens or fucked up human-wanna-be replicators fall head over heels for her at the first bat of those baby blues and torrent of technobabble out of her mouth. 

Damn it. It wasn't a problem he'd ever really encountered in a team mate before her. How to stop people running off with her. Mostly now he just shot them. That worked pretty well. 

But it hadn't been that long since Fifth, just a few months in fact and he knew she'd had nightmares, Daniel had quietly informed him about it and he’d been his usual dismissive, protective self. She was Carter. She was fine. After all he suspected she had more than a little well earned PTSD, he’d hoped she’d gotten over it somewhat, even as he knew that was a crock of shit, he didn’t know what had happened to her out there but he’d suspected. A fear that had been confirmed almost with the emergence of Repli-Carter as he’d dubbed her monstrous twin. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to have had your brain, your thoughts, your memories running around twisted into one of those things. He’d had enough just letting one of those things look around his head, or Kanan in there ‘sharing’. But he suspected now that she’d never quite be over it, much like he wouldn’t ever quite be over the times he was taken prisoner and tortured. But now he knew first hand that Daniel hadn’t quite given it enough weight, or he hadn’t want to hear it, because it was at least twice a night she woke in a cold sweat, touching her forehead. Just the once, their first night here she'd been talking in her sleep, repeating Fifth's name... and begging him to stop, the sound she’d made had wrenched him into action shaking her awake refusing to let her go through even the memory of whatever that was again. 

He'd been an ice block for most of that so he couldn't have stopped it, but it didn't mean it made him feel any less guilty. He’d talked to her about the whole thing when her identical twin had shown up, she’d assured him she was fine even as she’d confessed to hating Fifth. Carter didn’t hate easily, which meant that he further suspectd what her time in the Replicators hands had been like. Days he’d had her. Days, which could feel like an eternity trapped inside your worst memories… he remembered those bastards forcing him to relive Charlie. 

Again…all of that was his fault, Fifth had a bee in his bonnet with her because of the damn order he’d given her to abandon him. But aside from the occasional nightmare she seemed to be handling it fine, trusting her Replicator-self granted was a bonehead move; but they’d all been there, making another bad decision because you were too worried about the consequences of the last one. He had considered it a necessary learning process for her step up into command at the time. Although because it was Carter, her mistakes tended to be biblical in scale. He just hoped the rest of the Galaxy didn’t have to pay for it, because she didn’t deserve that level of guilt. Not that they’d know what happened, stuck out here.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have his own demons and a healthy chunk of PTSD from his time in service, the SGC had only added to that. Carter, well she'd roused him more than once too over the years when it had gotten too bad out in the field in their shared tent. The one time not long after Ba’al, when he’d startled awake and wrapped his hands around her neck for an instant before he’d regained his senses. But she hadn’t flinched. Just calmly and swiftly broken his hold and secured him in a pinned hold until he was awake. It was one of the reasons he'd stopped sharing a bed with his ex-wife. Afraid he'd wake up and murder her in his sleep. But Carter could kick his ass though three ways to Sunday half-asleep. It was oddly comforting. Everyone at the SGC that lasted more than a year had something that had them startling awake at night because it was the nature of the job and there was just some shit you just couldn’t unsee.

But that brought him back to the musing’s of sleep and the nightmares he suspected awaited them both and the very real fears of being trapped here. The night was coming in fast, not helped by the dust storm that had kicked up and he settled their two beds, consisting of two mostly cleaned mattresses on the floor side by side complete with sheets he’d nabbed from the vault and stuffed into his bag, around the camp fire Carter had gotten going in their usual spot. Codsworth had agreed to be on watch at night for them, given as he had no need to sleep and movement and heat sensors that could detect anything creeping up far better than they could. Which presented them with the rare opportunity of actually both getting a full night’s shut eye. 

Except they were both wide awake staring into the fire and drinking his dwindling supply of coffee. 

“We’re going to have to find a replacement for caffeine you know.” Jack told her quietly, not taking his eyes of the fire. “Not sure I fancy taking my chances with you in the morning without a hit of it.”

Carter snorted, and placed her mug down on the floor, curling her hands around her knees and staring at him instead. He could feel the heat of her stare and he resolutely ignored it.

“Are we going to talk about it?” She asked, sounding like he should know exactly what it was and he only suspected.

Jack sighed. “What… specifically?” he turned his head finally to look at her, trying not to see the way the firelight danced in her golden hair. “We got a lot of unspoken going on right now.” He acknowledged poking it with a stick for a moment. She bit her lip and glanced back at the fire, breaking eye contact, which was exactly what he suspected. She wasn’t being that brave just yet.

“About being stranded here.” She replied finally. “We may never go home.. Sir.” She admitted her voice breaking slightly and he noticed the hesitation over his honorificw and wondered if she’d been about to call him by his name again. That would make it exactly twice since they’d gotten here. Which was almost a record for them in such a small span of time. He could count on his hand the times she’d let herself get that personal with him.  
“This place… this might have to become our lives.” Her voice was breaking slightly and he realised she might be on the verge of losing faith and it was much, much too early for that.

Jack shook his head. “It’s early days yet Carter, you’ve barely had a chance to work the problem.”

“Right.” She muttered, “I’ll magic a gate out of my ass right after I go walk on water.” Carter bit out and he bristled. Not quite the rousing encouragement he’d been hoping for, but still plenty of passion so she wasn’t drowning in depression either. Anger he could deal with.

“I’m not saying it’s your responsibility Carter…” he tried and she glared sharply at him.

“What, so your going to come up with a genius plan to get us a Stargate, and some how get us off a parallel future Earth, if that’s even where the hell we are?” She snapped at him. Then she looked away and bit off the most insubordinate ‘Sir’ he’d ever heard pass her lips. It was actually sort of hot and at the same time terrifying. Carter was often the naysayer but never quite so hard so fast. And he’d never seen her admit defeat on a gate related problem so easily. But then that was the problem, they had no gate, no DHD, no tech and no ship. Without it he wondered if he was seeing the complete collapse of his 2ICs own self confidence. He was used to being clueless and sometimes helpless. Carter – not so much he imagined.

“Wow, that bad huh.” He muttered and she continued ignoring him glaring at the fire like it had personally offended her.  
“Look, your feeling overwhelmed, and yes it probably is on you and your big damn brain to fix this problem, cause I’m just going to be pretty much pissing into the wind if I went and tried something techy.” He admitted and she snorted in agreement, “But you haven’t given up hope, I’ve seen you sticking as much data into that PipBoy as you can, plotting routes and options, looking for tech or answers. You’ll find something, you always do.”

“How can you have so much faith in me Sir?” She asked him quietly.

Now wasn’t that the million dollar question. “Because Sam,” he turned to face her letting her see that this was no word of a lie, “I have you. And you’ve always gotten me home.”

She stared at him a beat longer than necessary until he started to shift uncomfortably under the scrutiny and he dropped his gaze back into the fire. Realising that he’d slipped. He’d gone and called her Sam. Shit.

“You gave up on P5C-768.” She pointed out and he didn’t need to think long as to where that was, that particular designation was seared into his brain.

“Edora was different.” He replied quietly, trying to ball the emotion he’d just let leak out with that personal confession and stuff it back inside. Knowing this was a sore point, one that had never really healed between them. Because they’d never really discussed it.

“What made it different… why was it okay to give up then and not the other times you were stranded?” She pressed and he wondered if he owed her an answer or not. After all he’d seen the reports, spoken to T’ealc when all was said and done and after that whole ‘stolen’ tech issue was over and he could get back to his team. She’d survived losing her trust in him, they all had, he figured they were strong enough after that to survive anything. Perhaps he’d misjudged the damage that whole period had done to their relationship.

“I told you Carter. I’d be pissing in the wind if I was stranded and needed to fix the gate. That was what happened on Edora. I just didn’t know back then that I had you whether you were on the damn planet or not, I should have. But I didn’t. So I gave up. Accepted what I could and hoped for better.” It was the closest he’d come to apologising to her he realised grimly. Maybe they should have spoken about this before, back when he’d discovered the lengths she’d gone to, to save him.  
“And I didn’t give up when I was stranded on that damn Furling Moon with Maybourne.” He pointed out. “I’d learnt my damn lesson, I sat tight and waited for you to come get me.” He’d also heard from T’ealc just how affected she’d been after that incident too. She’d blamed herself, except re-writing the laws of phyiscs hadn’t worked to get him back from there, but good old observation and persistence had. Either way she always seemed to come through for him. Even if she had to run herself into the ground to do it.

“But Edora was different, you didn’t want to come back.” Carter pointed out and he stared at her quietly for a moment. 

Jack sighed “I came back.” It wasn’t a complete answer, hell he wasn’t sure what to say, at the time he’d been tired, he’d been happy there for sure, Laira had been good to him, but it wasn’t his life, or his home. And in the end he’d walked away, and he’d not looked back.  
“And trust me somehow I don’t think that’s going to be the case here. But I’ll tell you what, we’ll have this conversation again if we reach 100days in this godforsaken place.” He offered and she paled at the thought.

Carter shifted uncomfortably and stood clearly wanting out of this conversation. “I’m just going to check in with Codsworth.” She told him and quickly left. He sighed and tossed a pebble at the crumbling drywall of their 50s pre-fab home. The wallpaper faded and peeling as he stared and considered why it was always so hard to talk to Carter honestly. But that was the issue. He was always too damn emotional when it came to her. He reached over to his pack of scavenged items and pulled out the blue bandana… may as well get all the crap over with in one night, lay it all out there so to speak. The tension was already pulled taut between them and neither of them had anywhere else to escape to for space, or any other outlet but each other except the damn floating swiss-army knife robot.

He glanced up as she came back in half hour later, probably wondering what the hell he was doing playing with the blue bandana. He couldn’t help glancing over at her in the figure hugging blue cat-suit (Vaultsuit) as she stood highlighted in the doorway. The leather jacket she’d paired with it pushing all his buttons on her. God damn it. He glanced over at the BDUs that were drying out by the fire and wondered how long they’d take because that outfit wasn’t helping his current issue any that he had to raise with her.

“All good?” he asked and she nodded, smiling thinly, arms crossed. This was so not the time… but like a band-aid best to do all the pulling quickly.

“Look Carter, I'm going to need you to wear this if we're going to that City where there might be people. At least until we get the lay of the land a bit.” He held out the offending scrap of blue cloth, that would do a good job of concealing most of her face.

Some women would have balked he knew at being told what to do and what to wear. The military in her kept that mostly to a minimum, but he saw the flash of ire deep in her eyes and the shadow of another planet… and a blue dress and veil passed between them and he swallowed. God that had been a clusterfuck of a mission from start to finish, not only had he lost his 2IC to kidnapping to a child, she’d had to suffer the indignity of being traded and treated like a piece of damn meat. He wasn’t about to see that happen again. Not anywhere and he had a horrible feeling in his gut, that he wasn’t wrong about what they might expect at this ‘City’. Stripping away civilisation from a people, rarely had a calming effect.

Sam swallowed whatever it was she felt like saying, he watched her visibly push it away and reached out and took the offending scrap from his fingers, hers brushing along his as they went the firelight dancing along her pale features and reminding him exactly ‘why’ he was suggesting this in the first place. Until tonight neither of them had allowed themselves a moment to be still... to really reflect on the situation they were in, he didn't especially want that to carry on right now either, not when everything was still so close to the surface, the tension pushing at their well established boundaries and her ‘Sirs’ hanging on by a thread, at what he knew from bitter experience was a torrent of suppressed emotions from them both about the impossibly bleak future they faced.

Carter played with the material. It was an unoffensive plain blue a similar colour to those vault jumpsuits they were sporting now, seemed like blue was ‘their’ colour, but fashion wasn’t really a concern here, given as they were already dressed in a mixture of BDU’s and leather gear they’d traded in their stuff for, given the warmer climate. He'd thought Nuclear Winters were supposed to be cold, but apparently nothing had blotted out the sun, their nukes were way more effective. Death by incineration and annihilation, no muss no fuss and most of the infrastructure intact. Just endless radiation... but even that had been designed to be short-lived she said or they wouldn't be standing here on the surface at all.

But the issue wasn’t how it looked, it was what it represented and he held his breath when she finally spoke.  
“I'm sorry.” she murmured, pocketing the thing and looking like she'd let him down. Of course she understood and had come to the worst possible conclusion… that she was a liability somehow because she happened to look a certain way, or because she was a woman.

He let out a groan and grabbed her arm. ‘Damn it.’ He barked internally, there was no right way for this conversation to go he realised, but it needed to happen, he wasn’t having some assholes targeting her. Not out here.  
“Hey... no. Don't you dare!” He snapped and pulled her in closer by her slightly reluctant arm so she would listen. Perhaps having this conversation last thing at night when they were already wound up might not have been his brightest idea either. But she’d just seen how dark the people of this world might be after what they’d done in the vault, flesh peddling seemed like a genuine fucking fear right now. Although why they’d take the baby and not the attractive mother as well he didn’t want to guess at.  
“Sam, don’t you ever apologise for being beautiful.” He rasped and because he couldn’t help it, he brushed his knuckles over her cheek for just a moment, he shouldn’t have touched her, not combined with a statement like that, he knew that the instant the warmth of her cheek touched his skin and his breath faltered.

Her eyes shot to his and he stared back at her resolutely. Unrepentant. It was the god damn truth and she wasn't blind to her own effect; Sam knew how she looked, had spent a good part of her life struggling to be taken seriously in a man's world because of it. And she knew the effect she had on him…

He reached up with his hand and gently cupped her chin, “This isn’t about being a woman Carter, I just…” he just wanted her safe… but he couldn’t say that without stomping on about 30 years of hard won civil liberties.

“I'm a liability.” She murmured finally and he saw the resolute set of her features, the anger and fear warring there, something that had never quite left her since she'd been traded for coins and horses, and even his own damn gun, like an object, a thing to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. Apparently, the sting of that never faded.  
“So's Daniel. But I put up with his pretty face too.” That did it, and he let out a relieved chuckle as she let out a snort of laughter and he dropped her chin, breaking the connection as she turned away and the firelight danced along her profile. And god damn but she was beautiful, he kept waiting for the day when he wouldn't think that, when her features would stop rendering him breathless at the darndest moments.

“Thank you, Sir.” she replied, accepting the bandana and he hoped the honest intention he’d had behind offering it.

“Jack.” He corrected deciding that he may as well go the whole hog here and she blinked, her expression wary. 

“I'm not sure we should abandon the ranks just yet, Sir.” She replied a little tersely, despite the fact that they’d both done exactly that at one point or another today. But that hadn’t been his point.

He crossed his arms. “Carter... Sam.” He conceded biting back his own habit.  
“I'm not abandoning hope of getting home, or getting our old lives back. This isn’t that, I'm being practical. If there's anything left of a military here, I'm not certain that I want us being associated with it until I know what it stands for. ‘Sir's’ are a dead giveaway.” he held his finger up, “Ah.” he cut her interruption off.  
“And... frankly I don't want you appearing subservient to me in anyway. It weakens your position, makes you look more like...” he stumbled over what he wanted to say there, sensing the tension and the dark glint in her eye that suggested he might be edging onto dangerous territory. “Well let’s just say we don't need any more reasons for folks to want to get hold of you, now do we?”

He thought he might have shocked her with that last one, but then he was always good at reading people. It was one of his talents, the reason they sent him in for covert, that and blending in and acting on an order, however despicable an order it was. But he’d also seen some really bad shit, by humans on humans he knew what they were capable of once civilisation was stripped away. This wasn’t some idle idea, he’d seen it first hand and no way no hell was that becoming Sam.

“Then I should probably point out Jack...” She snapped out his name like she was saying Sir anyway. “That if you worried about ‘flesh peddlers’ here, like that Kellogg guy maybe, then it’s not just me we've got to worry about.” She hit the nail on the head having no difficulty following his dark line of thought it seemed and he grimaced, she didn’t appreciate the coddling and dodging the subject just as he’d suspected she wouldn’t.

He blinked taking in the rest of what she’d said, was she actually suggesting… “I'm old and grey.” he pointed out.  
“And...” he glanced down at his middle, “Well okay the wasteland diet has really helped trim my desk gut back, but I have the very real potential of getting fat! Plus, as we all now know, bad knees.” He quipped trying to make light of a topic he really didn’t find all that funny.

But Carter was smirking at him and she leant forward, a gleam in her eye as she rasped in his ear. “Fertile balls remember Jack.” She whispered her breath fanning his ear and sending a shiver down his spine as she looked him quite deliberately up and down before winking at him. And in that moment she wasn’t Carter, or Colonel she was Samantha, and Sam was apparently seduction personified, and dear God if he didn’t lose the ability to speak in that moment, she had no business looking at him like that and he was both sincerely grateful and regretful that this was the first time he’d ever seen that expression. His balls were too, they twitched in response and he wondered if they’d just declared mutiny on him and their whole ‘keep it in the room agreement’. Hell, who was he kidding they often broke out that damn room and started thinking independently when she was around.  
Sam stroked his cheek with her index finger drawing away, her breath leaving his ear and he fought back a shudder. “How about we both cover up our pretty faces and try to look less... enticing, shall we?”

She left him opened mouthed and to his slight shame stirring to life at the somewhat exhilarating combination of her featherlight touch and the breath in his ear, followed by that damn quirk of her lips taunting him with that deliciously provocative 'Jack' of hers, he’d used to think the innuendo she could pack into a single word like ‘Sir’ was impressive, but his name in her mouth was like a fucking benediction. 

But his sudden alertness courtesy of that little shot in the arm made him question where the hell that had come from? She normally didn't flirt quite so blatantly and he as he stared stone faced at her he realised she was lashing out, afraid and angry that she was still just another pretty face apparently. Reduced to a stereotype because of her gender again.

“Damn it Carter.” he growled, dropping the Sam, because yeah, so not going there right now. They were both too close to the edge and apparently, she hadn’t been quite as accepting of it as he’d started to hope.  
“I get it, it sucks, but wear the damn rag and put your shades on for Christ Sake.” he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Shall I tape my breasts too?” She quirked an eyebrow but her lips were pressed into a thin dangerous line. “Or shave my head?” She added goading him.

Anger and irritation with her and this whole fucking situation flared and he lashed out tit for tat. Two could play at this game.  
“Wouldn’t help.” He replied stalking forwards breathing sharply his own anger fuelled by the sudden flash of arousal she’d caused what he was certain was deliberately until he was almost nose to nose.  
“Hairless, breastless, you’d still be beautiful.” 

She seemed to stop breathing, her eyes widening and so close he could see the sudden dilation, the faint tremor in her lips and jaw. He cocked his head, taking in her face and resisting with every fibre of his being touching her again.

“Especially in this outfit right.” She murmured, leaning in close and he fought it, but his eyes dropped down for a moment damn her and he saw her eyes flash over his with the same hungry look. That was it, they weren’t stepping out the house in these fucking suits. But she wasn’t done as she stepped in close, pressing that almost skin tight suit almost against his and he breathed in, keeping them apart.  
“After all these years Jack… are you saying I still do it for you?” She asked amusement and wonder warring in her whisper thin voice. As though she didn’t trust herself to speak despite the lightness she’d aimed for. He knew the feeling. But she’d started this, he’d been coming at this from a purely tactical point of view, she’d responded with a deliberate provocation. He'd clearly underestimated how shaken this world had her that she was pushing their long-established boundaries. He had a choice, he could do what he always did, be mild, unthreatening enough to let her know he was interested but not seriously. Or he could push back. Show her what 8 years of tormented wanting could do to a bitter old man.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, his stare darkening and he watching any hint of tease or amusement bleed away out of her face at what he knew were his midnight black eyes, intense and focused entirely on her. He watched it happen, the barely perceptible shiver down her back and slight part of her lips that said he'd gotten to her.  
“You really want to play this game Sam? Because you’re the one that wanted to leave it in the room remember.” He warned smoothly, seeing the tell-tale signs in her of regret even as he knew he'd piqued her interest yet again, but she looked away first, stepping hastily away from him to the other side of the room. Damn adrenalin junky, he wondered if half of tormenting him was just to get her rocks off when she was bored or scared.

“Does Perfect Pete make you shiver with a look?” He taunted, and regretted it in the way her head snapped up to look back at him and a coldness slid into those blue eyes of hers. Okay it was a dick thing to say, but he didn’t like her playing him and out of the two of them for once he had the moral high ground here. He caught the burnt book she snatched up and tossed at his head with unerring accuracy.

“You’re an asshole... Jack!” She bit out and stormed off outside to do a perimeter sweep and blow off some steam.

He looked down and scuffed his boot. “Yeah.” He admitted to himself, not certain he liked the implication that he got the same feeling when she was snarling his actual name from across the room, as when she had rasped it in his ear. But he wasn't the one playing a dangerous came flirting with him when she had someone to get back too apparently.


	4. Freedom Fighters

Sam was annoyed at herself she realised darkly. She'd fumed all night, as they’d slept on opposite sides of their dilapidated house, and the barrel fire in the middle, with them resolutely not-talking about it, and Codsworth checking in on them every now and again. She’d considered apologising about a dozen times, but then he'd started it. However, juvenile that sounded. He'd been the one that had called her beautiful, twice. Stroked her face. Made her breath falter and her heart slam into her chest. Then he’d pinned her with that look that she’d felt shooting straight between her legs and started an old ache in her chest that she’d thought she’d abandoned.

She hated that he apparently still had this kind of power over her. But most of all she hated that he was right. Despite what he’d tried to reassure her of, she was a god damn liability. She'd never wished to be ugly... but she had wished more than once to be male. Where looking good was an asset not something to be exploited. Or at least so she thought, but she didn't know anymore. People exploited people, it was apparently that way in every Universe, reality or damn planet. She was just sick of being a target because of it. And she hated that he might be at risk because of it, because there was no way Jack O’Neill would stand by and let a fate like that just happen to her.

Then there was Pete. 

Pete was the stick she kept using to poke him. Perfect Pete. His way of telling her unequivocally that he disapproved. After he'd been so careful all this time to say nothing even approaching scathing about what she knew he considered the 'nosy cop'. 'Nosy stalker cop' Daniel had corrected more than once when he thought she’d been out of earshot and she bit her lip, watching as Jack swung up his hunting rifle and blasted away some poor two headed animal that looked rabid. She wasn't sure if he realised that he'd never actually said the words 'perfect Pete' to her before. But she got the impression that had been his name for her fiancé all the time, but here, with so much enforced contact and no T’ealc or Daniel shaped buffer, it had clearly slipped out and he hadn't corrected it. It clearly bothered him that she was with someone else, enough that it was on his mind. She was oddly pleased by that and she wondered if half of her dating Pete had been just to see if Jack still cared.

Apparently, he did. She stifled the shiver even the memory of that look he gave her last night brought. God did he still care! And she realised just like that she’d started thinking of him as ‘Jack’ again, a habit she’d had to stop some time ago.

But she’d seen the pain, the utter desire lain plainly on his face, if she pushed him, he'd force her to put her money where her mouth was so to speak. And she wasn't certain just yet that she was done browsing. Because out here, flirting with him was dangerous, it had always been dangerous, but here there was no escape back to normality, they were 24/7, and there was no SG1, no Airforce and no eyes to see and care what they did to each other.

Fuck. 

Perhaps heading to Diamond City today when they were barely able to look at one another hadn’t been the smartest move. She snarled inwardly and looked up in time to see something burst out of the ground behind him. Her blade was in her hand and she'd dived on the creature before it had time to make a sound driving her knife straight into its skull. She flinched when a gunshot rang out inches from her and she shot her head back to look at the now dead creature at her foot she hadn't noticed, still half submerged.

“Mutant moles?” Jack mused. And whirled as another one emerged letting out a shriek that actually caused a faint trembling in the ground. “And that sounds like a cry for help.” He shot it with the double-barrel shotgun he’d appropriated from a storm cellar/garage out back of one of the garden’s in Sanctuary. The blast taking the nasty creatures head damn near clean off, then he was extending his hand to her and dragging her up to her feet.  
“Clean and quick.” he reminded her his 'Colonel' going unsaid but not unheard, “We need to preserve ammo.” She nodded swallowing the ‘Yes Sir’ she almost barked and with precision they took out about another six of the ugly little buggers.

“These things are gross and I'd thought the damn roaches were bad.” Jack commented kicking one over half-heartedly. The smell was certainly powerful.

“I'm not eating that.” She muttered the idea of it turning her stomach more than even the Bloatfly’s as Jack had deemed them and turned, stalking away as she heard his footfalls behind her. She was oddly glad for the bandana she’d forced herself to wear today, it cut out some of the smells she was certain that thing was emitting. 

“Fair enough.” He added, his voice muffled by the green camo bandana he’d worn around his face today, having emerged from the house with it on and not said a word, clearly a gesture of solidarity, or he’d taken her own warning which hadn’t been entirely in jest seriously. He fell into place a few steps beside her. It was the most he'd said to her all day. Which suited her fine. This was how it was with them, they'd stew over a row until one of them said something stupid.

“I'm sorry Sir.” She told him suddenly, surprising them both. Maybe she was a little out of practice with Jack O’Neill as her CO, but she didn’t like this tension between them, not when it had such a bitter sensation to it, she didn’t need him to start resenting her. Not again, because she was fairly certain he’d done that once or twice over the years, when he’d tried to put some distance between them. Re-establish a wall that was never going back up.

“I was out of line.” She admitted, pulling down the bandana so she could speak clearly as she propped her sunglasses on her head as she squinted into the sun and waited for him to respond. It felt like dragging blood from a stone as his eyebrow went up and he gave her a thousand-yard stare. She sighed exasperated with this bloody idiot as he stood there in the early morning red light, with his hair all ruffled, his gun across his still firm chest and his combat stance revealing the thighs she'd often imagined pinning her... yeah she needed to get a grip. He pulled his own bandana down revealing that chiselled now stubbled jaw and hung his own sunglasses onto his tac vest pocket. Why the hell did he have to look so damn appealing all the time. He’d always pushed her buttons and out here, seeing him survive almost effortlessly, building privy’s, gardening, roofing, lock picking… he was like the swiss army knife of man and it was damn attractive.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you.” He admitted finally, clearly having recalled the way he’d brushed her cheek when he’d first called her beautiful as he glanced at his own knuckles for a moment, as if they’d somehow betrayed him. “I started it.” He added grimly, not meeting her eyes and she felt some of the tension ease, she’d needed him to admit that she realised grimly.

“I shouldn’t have flirted with you.” She confessed, knowing if she wasn’t feeling so damn angry and scared she wouldn’t have done it. But this place put her on edge almost as much as the man in front of her sometimes could, and the conversation they’d been having just before it all got a bit out of hand had been a quick trip into a funk she feared she might wallow in. Distraction had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I like you flirting Sam.” He admitted and she felt the sound of her name right down to her core, and she almost wished he’d stop, because the way it felt to hear him say that wasn’t going back in a box no matter how hard she pushed.  
“When its harmless.” he added. Then he stalked forward, standing inches from her, those same dark eyes as he’d used on her last night boring into her.  
“And right now, it’s anything but harmless.” He rasped and she suppressed the way it made her feel to see the desire laid bare, he was all but inviting her to wrap herself around him, it screamed out of his eyes and his body language, and from that low rumble of a voice.  
“I know your scared, freaked out and latching onto something familiar, because it’s all we've got right now. I'm all you've got.” He considered and she blinked, she’d only just gotten that far in her own thought processes, but apparently he’d realised a lot sooner, then again as he’d pointed out several times now, this wasn’t his first rodeo being stranded.  
“But it was never a game to me Sam. Ever.” He added darkly and she saw that pain and bitterness rear its head once more, making her regret that this couldn’t just have been an ‘I’m sorry I went too far, let’s leave it at that’, apparently he was done being able to keep this in a neat little locked room as well.  
“I can't have you Colonel, I'm not even supposed to think about having you.” His dark eyes bore holes into her and she felt heat pool as her gut twisted at the use and stark reminder of her rank between them; his intensity was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. When he paired that almost visceral sexuality and masculinity that was purely him with words like ‘having you’ she almost gasped at the sensation, had she been a man she’d have been hard, as it was she felt tense and warm her stomach fluttering dangerously. God he was right, what he did to her just wasn’t safe. But he wasn’t done, he took another step closer until their torso’s were almost brushing and she stared transfixed by his eyes.  
“But you know I do think about it…” His eyes flickered to her lips confessing, and it was the most he’d ever offered on the subject, giving her a peek inside the torment she now knew they shared. It was almost harder to know how intensely he felt it too, even after all this time.  
“So, don't tempt me Sam... not if you don't mean it. You owe me better than that.”

And with that, his piece apparently said, he pushed past her, not quite a shoulder barge but close as she stepped out of the way and she swallowed her retort, leaving her feeling like she’d been tenderly seduced and then viciously slapped. He was right of course she realised. 

“We're both owed better.” She called after him and he glanced back with a grim expression as he picked up his shades from where they hung on his t-shirt and placed them over his eyes, pulling up his green camo bandana he’d clearly worn as solidarity with hers, but it effectively hid whatever else he might be feeling from her gaze.

“Probably. But this is what we got.” He gestured to her to follow him into the Wasteland, she sighed and pulled her own bandana back into place around her mouth and nose, and dropped the shades back down from her head. She followed after him because that's what they did, he barked an order and she asked 'how high'. Safer that way.

The first humans they came across on this planet were a disappointment. She and Jack crouched down behind a burnt out vehicle. “They've got control of the bridge.” Jack pointed out needlessly and they weren't about to go traipsing up to their waists through contaminated river water. He gave her the instruction to flank right and she followed it, knowing the drill, but not entirely what to expect. Their weapons looked rudimentary, almost home made. Knives strapped to barrels, gaffer tape to keep together metal piping. Pipe pistols Jack had called them and she wondered if he'd seen something like them before at the ass end of the world back home. 

Jack stood. Walking calmly towards them, weapon down but out. “Hey there!” he called out, drawing all eyes as she crept closer until she was wedged between a barrel and a concrete bollard. Her finger pressed against the trigger. They still didn't know what to expect, if these people could be friendly, or if it was like Codsworth said, they merely wanted you for spare parts.

“Die cocksucker!” The one at the front shrieked and raised his gun, spraying the ground Jack had been before he darted for cover. It was all the info they needed, Raiders... assume hostile and shoot on sight. It hadn't been hard. Their training and precision against a lot of bluster and bad aim. One tried to run for it, hightailing it across the bridge and Sam lined up her scope, considering. It went against her instincts to shoot someone fleeing in the back. A shot rang out and she closed her eyes. Jack had been trained to ignore those instincts. The raider sprawled down dead and she didn't mention her hesitation, neither did Jack as he slowly walked towards the bodies. It felt, barbaric almost, picking through the bodies for anything they could use to keep themselves alive another day. To think all humanity had accomplished and they were reduced to this... vultures of the dead.

Jack had been subdued after that, as if seeing proof positive that the humans in this world were going to be as bad as he suspected had put out whatever hope he'd been clinging to. That's when they heard it. Gunfire as they approached a town called Concord, or so the faded sign informed them. This one was more built up than Sanctuary, and they headed towards the shouts and gunfire. Right to a public library where there seemed to be some sort of standoff between a group of what looked like regular people and a band of raiders in their leathers, spiked gear and blood war paint. 

“We should help them.” Sam admitted, watching the people get pushed back into the library. The raiders held off for a moment by the heavy duty barricaded doors. 

“And we'd help them why?” Jack pressed.

“Because they don't look like Raiders and I don't know about you Jack, but I'd like to know that the entire human race hadn't descended into assholes.”

He shrugged. “It’s a risk.”

She grit her teeth and she noticed he was carefully not giving her an order, as per his ridiculous idea to make her less vulnerable, which had only exposed them both to another kind of emotional vulnerability. She wondered how much that was costing him too.  
“They may have information we can use, you saw that weapon the guy in the fancy hat had right.” Jack nodded, “Some sort of plasma beam maybe, an energy weapon of some kind at least. That means technology. We can't afford to pass up the chance that there might be pockets of this world still intact.”

He blew out an exasperated breath and she realised she was waiting for him to give the order. Like the good soldier anyway. “Fine. Your right. There's snipers.” he pointed up. “And I'm fairly sure I watched one of them run off to get some help when his gun got blown off him.” Sam nodded, noted.

“We go in there, we're trapped. Just like they are.” Jack pointed out.

“And they'd be forced to come through a funnel.” she added. He nodded grimly conceding the point.

“I've got the big bastard closest to the door, you take care of the sniper for me when I draw him out. These buggers don't have patience and they aren't stealthy at all, so it shouldn't be hard.” He was right of course, the sniper was practically doing a little dance up there on his railings, gyrating like he was king of the world with his spiked mohawk hair do that she hadn't seen in a long time and had really hoped never to again. She put a bullet between his eyes as he'd raised his weapon to Jack whilst he'd taken out the big guy with a rifle to the back of his skull that he wasn't going to be getting up from. They took out another one apiece and she hurried to catch up with him as he stood outside the library doors.

“Let us in. We can help you.” he called out and he heard some whispering and shouts from inside the double doors. “Raiders are dead!” he added for good measure.

“There will be more!” came a scared voice. 

“There are always more.” another deeper more in control voice intoned and Sam stood up a little straighter, it sounded military. “Come on in, grab the laser musket from our fallen friend.”  
Sam looked down and spotted a man dressed in a similar hat to the guy she assumed was talking behind the door. She picked up the weapon strewn by his feet and examined it whilst Jack looked alert down the street.

“We got incoming Carter, take the damn thing and get inside.” he groused and she didn't hesitate pushing on the door and striding inside. “Wow.” she managed as she looked up. Not because she was impressed but shocked. This clearly had once been a library but entire sections of the upper floor had collapsed, grime and dust coated everything. There were voices from inside on an upper level and she and Jack tracked them, coming to stand outside what looked like a back office and staring down a black skinned man with a militia hat of some kind and a long duster. He had one of the 'laser muskets' as he'd called them pointed at them.

“Who are you?” he questioned, not relenting for a moment, but Sam stepped forward, stilling Jack's natural reaction, after all when Daniel wasn’t around Sam tended to play the peacekeeper. “We're here to help, we saw you fighting.”

The man looked them over assessing. “I'm Preston Garvery, of the Minutemen. I'm charged with protecting these people. You think you can help me, then that's good, I ain't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but you hurt anyone in here, I'll shoot you dead where you stand. We clear?”

“I'm Sam Carter.” she told him. “This is Jack O'Neill. We're just people. And we'll help you.” She kept the military ranks out of it for now, it had been Jack’s stipulation after all and despite what she’d just said, and still stinging a bit from her unprofessional behaviour yesterday she was a solider and she was determined to follow at least one order. The minute they gave up and just forgot who they were then they were truly trapped here and right now, she couldn’t accept that.

“Why?” Preston didn't relent.

Jack shrugged. “Why not.”

“Good enough.” Preston admitted, and lowered his gun, stepping back and in, cautiously Sam followed, having Jack at her back helped as they entered the room and she got a good look at these people. Her heart almost broke, they were just people. Scared, filthy but people. Her eyes took them in and she watched Preston watching her, he was trained in some fashion he knew how to hold a gun at any rate and he was thinking they were mercenaries, wanting something for their efforts, or to rob them blind. With a grimace she reached up and pulled her bandana off, and pocketed the shades, showing him her face and his expression changed almost instantly. She hated when Jack was right, but her face had an effect. Right now, she was hoping that it was more trustworthy and reassuring than most they were used to seeing, so she was damn well going to use it.

“Where you headed?” Jack stepped up beside her, slipping his bandana down too and showing his strong jaw and unamused expression as he also pocketed his shades inside the dingy darkened room with all the windows boarded up. Sam watched this man Preston assessing him and clearly deciding Jack was a man worth answering.

“Someplace safe, these people have been on the move for a long time, I'm just trying to find them somewhere they can settle, make a home.” Preston told her and she could hear the world weariness there, she wondered how long it had been since these people had somewhere to call home.

Sam blinked. “We may know a place.” She gave Jack a look and he shrugged, which was about as much agreement as he gave.

“How much is this place going to cost us?” Preston asked with clear suspicion, not that she blamed him.

“Hey pal. We just helped you out back there. So how about you try that again with manners.” Jack snipped, but didn't otherwise move between them. The two men shared a look, Jack was his usual forced casual self, like he was barely taking anything in, unthreatening and underestimated. What he did best. And a bloody good act that she'd been fooled by too at the start, even when she knew his service history. Preston wasn't fooled either Sam noted, these people all of them had grown up in a world gone to shit, they knew how to read others apparently, she imagined it was how they'd survived at all.

“Your right. Thank you for the assist. But it isn't over. They've gone for reinforcements.” Preston replied. “You've come this far, you going to come all the way and help us survive this?” he all but challenged.

Jack cocked his head. “It's what we do best.” He grinned rising to the bait but not in the least bit amused, his grin was all teeth. “Just keep your people back. You handy with that thing?” he pointed to the musket in the other man’s hands.

“I'm alive aren't I.” Preston deadpanned and Sam smirked, these two could be fun together she thought. 

“Pissing contests aside.” She snapped, “Let’s get these people barricaded in.” She looked around noting an old woman who looked dead on her feet, a young woman with a bob of dark hair and a terrified expression, a shell shocked looking young Asian man who was rocking quietly to himself and a guy with a shock of hair overalls and was she was certain was engine grease all over his hands who was eyeing her just as curiously.  
“Did you guys fall back in here because you had a plan or just luck?” Sam asked, glancing around and noticing the setup, the radio, the tech guy typing away. This seemed to planned for luck, she took in the boarded-up windows again and realised that this was some sort of base at one time for his group. The minutemen she thought he’d called them which was ringing a bell from her Colonial history books.

“This is a Minutemen safe place we use sometimes when we need a place to fall back to.” Preston informed her looking around with what she was sure was a measure of pride. Clearly he believed in this cause, whatever it was.  
“Look there's a suit of power armor on the roof and a nice surprise to go with it. But there's a snag. The fusion core's depleted. There's another one, basement of this library keeping the generator going. We need to get it or that suits just a hunk of metal. Help us get that suit and I promise you those raiders won’t know what hit them”

Jack raised an eyebrow, “And you haven't yet because...?”

“Too dangerous.” Preston gave him a look as he inclined his head to the band of people he was protecting. “There's something in the basement, it’s the reason we abandoned this post. Fairly sure it’s been tracking us station to station.” he added grimly. “The Raiders aren't the issue, I mean yeah on mass there a problem but that thing... it’s only a matter of time before it breaks out.” 

“And when you say something?” Sam prompted, stepping closer so that Preston and she could have a semi-private conversation about it. “Does it have a face... or not...”

“It's got a face. And teeth, big ass claws and breath that could stink up an outhouse in a Raider cannery and a mood black as sin.” The guy with the engine grease and the hair told her, looking like he thought tangling with it even in a suit was a bad idea as he headed for what looked like an old radio receiver set up in the corner and began fiddling with it.

“Poetic...” Jack acknowledged. “Fine. Carter we'll go get his nuclear battery thingy, for his suit and take care of this critter. And you,” he pointed at Preston, “Keep these folks safe, and keep those raiders off our asses we'll see what we can do.”

“Why are you helping us... we don't have anything to give you?” Preston queried suspicious but clearly daring to hope.

Sam reached out and touched his arm, he stared down at it, as if he hadn’t been touched in a while and Sam gently removed her hand. “How about we see if we survive this then we'll talk. Not everyone wants something.”

“Now that's a damn lie.” Preston murmured. “But fine, we'll play it your way. You help me, I'll do what I can for you.” He conceded. “If we live.” he strode away and got to work with the trembling young Asian man she’d spotted earlier who looked like he'd seen better days.

“Lets move out Carter, he's right those Raiders will be through those doors soon.”

Sam nodded and darted out, he feet flying over the rusty broken boards and collapsed flooring. This place was a goddamn mess she mused as she heard Jack panting behind her, his footfalls impossibly light for a man his size. The stairs were gone, but they found a passage down through a ruined bookcase. He jumped down and steadied his sight beneath taking in the room before he called her down and she landed heavily beside him. Snapping her rifle up and scouting the opposite side of the room.

“Sir, you realise what this means,” she started and he gave her an eyebwrow, “There’s people... actual real, not complete whacko people.” Sam managed to get out following close behind him, the grin she hadn't meant to let out cracking onto her face.

Jack gave her a look his lips quirked for a moment. “Carter, we're in a ruined building, being hunted by Raiders and about to go play peek-a-boo in the dark with some horribly mutated creature that has got that guy with the laser gun and the cool cowboy hat scared to death.... stop smiling.”

“Sorry Sir.” She replied on reflex, her grin mostly getting itself under control as she sobered some.

“And I thought we’d agreed to drop the Sir?” he snipped as they put there heads in each room, there was precious little left of whatever books had once been in this library by the looks of it.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that conversation didn’t go so well yesterday, how about I drop the Sir in public, happy compromise?”

Jack huffed. “Since when was this a democracy?” 

She couldn’t help but snort in amusement, the man didn’t even hear his own hypocrisy sometimes she was sure.  
“When you told me to drop the Sir… Sir.” She grinned her shit eating one at him and he wagged a finger at her.

“Don’t sass me Carter. I’ve got a gun.”

“Mines bigger.” She pointed out, which it was, he’d got the shotgun out right now with the laser musket slung over his shoulder, as neither of them had any idea how that thing worked. Which was why she’d kept her P90. Right now she wasn’t so concerned with saving bullets, but saving their assess. They’d find some 5.7mm ammo somewhere she hoped to replenish them. Hell they’d found 10mm handguns and shotguns. How different could weapons be? The laser gun aside of course.

Jack was silent for a moment as they approached a corridor to what looked like it used to be the bathrooms. His eyes scanned for a moment taking in the rather disturbing sight of someone’s very skeletal remains sat exactly where they’d died, on the loo. She could think of more dignified ways to go.

“Okay fine,” Jack said suddenly, breaking her morbid line of thought. “Finding actual human beings that don't shoot you on sight is good, I'll put that in the win column. But you really want to take them to Sanctuary?” He questioned and she knew he wasn't questioning her logic, but they had just decided to leave that place and make their way to the big city.

“Can we discuss this after we’ve killed the thing that’s going to tear our faces off from the shadows down here.” Sam replied recalling what the greasy fingered guy had said. “If nothing else they can water your damn plants for you whilst your away.” She teased and he smirked and gestured for her to continue on.

There was nothing in the basement, Sam was oddly enough mildly disappointed. Only because he was curious what an actual monster looked like around here, she thought the bugs were bad enough. Jack gave her a look as she swept the surroundings that suggested he knew exactly where her head was at and she felt mildly ashamed, she was grateful for the gloom wondering how much the mild blush at her own ridiculousness would give her away if he could see it.

“So this is mildly anti-climactic.” He groused, “Let’s go find the nuclear battery thing and blow something up. I’m sure that’ll hit your adrenalin button.” He added, making the little dig and she bit her lip, she shouldn’t enjoy it so much when he needled her, but she couldn’t help but like that he ‘got her’. Crazy adrenalin junky and rational scientist all in one utterly contradictory package. No wonder she was never able to just let herself be still or happy. She didn’t even know what she wanted half the time.

It didn’t take her long to work out how to release the power core from the generator down there. Even Jack could have managed it what with the handy ‘Eject power core’ button in red. He hit it and it slid out with a cooling his and the generator whirred down and the lights winked out. Jack snapped open his flashlight. 

“Oh yeah, blind mans buff… so much better than peek-a-boo with a face ripping monster.” He muttered and together their forearms remaining in contact as they held their weapons, just like they were trained to when you were cast into the dark in enemy territory, they moved out together.

Sam examined the little device in her hand. It looked kind of like a battery, bigger, and clearly with a nuclear source inside its glowing green chamber, but the idea that they could create a nuclear fusion core so small... so utterly compact and leaking well absolutely nothing according to her new PipBoy and her own devices, it actually blew her mind a little.

“This thing is incredible.” she murmured and Jack glanced at it, looking less impressed.

“Yeah, let’s get to the roof and stick it in the suit of armour. If it’s even still up there, if this guy thinks we need it then we probably do.” 

They did eventually run into a small group of Raiders who’d crawled in through some sort of store room window who seemed more surprised to see them, apparently the heavy duty front doors had stumped them, that or they wanted the hide out and weren’t willing to risk damaging the doors to get in. Jack hadn't even bothered wasting a bullet at the idiot that tried to brain him with bat. He'd ripped it from him, tripped him down to his knee and with barely an effort snapped his neck in a cold methodical well practiced technique that never failed to chill Sam. The second had a switchblade. That was hers now too. Before this, killing as part of the SGC had always been at a distance, down the barrel of a gun or scope, even a bomb or missile. Now though, there was something horribly up close and personal about all of this as she wiped her blood stained hands on the dead raiders clothes trying not to think too hard about what she was having to do out here, just to survive. There was no option to simply ‘knock him out’. And they’d buried their zats for now back in Sanctuary, Jack had been worried about alien tech like that either making them targets or commodities, either way they had enough weapons and a stun setting wasn’t all that helpful now. Although given the fancy ray guns Preston had, maybe the zats wouldn’t be too out of place.

She stood and looked at Jack who was grimacing down at the bloody neck of the Raider she’d had to kill. He never wanted her to kill, she remembered distinctly the chat they’d had a long time ago now about how he felt it took a piece of your soul with it. She wondered what kind of shape hers would be in if this was only day 7 and she’d killed exactly 4 people already today. God knows how many she was going to have to kill before the day was out.

“It’s them or us Carter.” He told her gruffly, but she could see that it bothered him too, which was the only reason she accepted it from him with a nod.

“I know. Doesn’t make it any easier.” She muttered, stashing the switchblade in her gear and checking her ammo clip.

“You just keep thinking like that, cause you really don’t want to know what its like to look in the mirror and realise it got easy.” On that grim note they were startled by the sound of gunfire back the way they came. Jack glanced back at her, starting to head towards it.  
“Carter, you go do to the suit of armor thing. I'm going to go back and make sure the coast stays clear behind you.” Translation he was going to defend the civilians and watch her six if he could, but so far these raiders weren’t a threat one on one, they could barely shoot straight and the idiot lying dead at her feet had almost pissed himself when she’d blocked his slash and plucked the knife from his limp broken wristed hand. She nodded and watched him take off down the corridor with mild apprehension, Preston must have impressed him because he wouldn't normally abandon her, but they needed ally’s and information, perhaps he'd come around to her way of thinking on this.

Sam reached the roof as the distinctive sound of Jack's P90 went off, rattling through the hallways, apparently he’d given up on the laser musket. The roof access door was rusted shut and she’d had to kick it open with some force, but as she stepped out into the faint dusk she took in a faint gasp of surprise. There was a suit of armor alright... and a downed chopper of some sort. Approaching it she ran her hands over the exoskeleton, the sounds of gunfire more pronounced out here as she realised she could hear the raiders mounting their assault just below. The mechanism seemed simple enough she realised with a jolt as she popped the fusion core into the hole at the back of the suit and cranked the wheel. The suit hissed open and she took a peak inside. It was kind of crude, but highly customisable she realised, stepping inside and sliding her feet in, then her arms until her face was seated in the mask and a HUDS up display began. The suit sealed shut automatically and it hissed closed with a metallic grinding and she was sealed inside. 

For a moment it was quiet in the enclosed metal only the faint pops of gunfire leaving her feeling faintly claustrophobic and secure at the same time. It was a little like a space suit – although she’d have given her right arm for a HUDS up like this one in that. This was too large a technology jump, much like the PipBoy to suggest that this was available to the general public. This was government issue, military probably. It seemed there was a much wider divide in the technology that the general public had access too versus the people in power. Sam wondered if that was one of the reasons this planet was a smouldering wreck. But then that sort of thing happened on her world too so she didn’t give it much more than a passing thought. After all she’d be making herself a hypocrite, her Government and the USAF had operated an intergalactic space travel program in secret from the rest of the worlds Governments for years, let alone the General public. Technology like beaming was maybe twenty or thirty years away from being rolled out. And unless there was a full blown invasion no one was going to mention aliens until they had to.

Sam returned her attention to the suit and its relative movement, she lifted her hand, flexing the metal gloved fist. It felt like an extension of her. Perfectly responsive, if lacking sensation of course, but the readouts had pressure sensors and approximated grip strength. Her footsteps were heavy and pounded on the roof as she strode onto the crashed ship and slid through it with ease, the leg servos working as an extension of her natural movement. It was a beautiful machine she considered. She could only imagine how much of an edge this thing would give you in combat.

There was a minigun mounted just inside the downed chopper – which wasn’t a chopper at all, more like one of the vertical take of and landing jets they had – possibly a hover drone – my God she was itching to get a look at it, but right now she had more pressing concerns, like a bunch of raiders her sensors were telling her were amassing just below her position. She picked up the gun off its mounted pedestal with ease and took a moment to process that before she was swinging it up into her arms as if it weighed nothing. T'ealc would have loved this gun she mused as she strode towards the edge of the roof. It seemed to operate much like any other minigun she’d ever seen, granted it seemed to have a much higher ammo capacity judging by the clips she could see. The barrel was a little longer too, suggesting it would probably have a decent range.

She stood looking down and balked slightly, they were being swarmed. Her HUDS display picked out targets and she cycled the minigun. She'd been in combat before, hundreds if not thousands of times, but this... this was not combat. This was more like shooting fish in a barrel, it was an execution and she was basically in a tank. But if she didn't, then they'd breach the building and her advantage would disappear and they'd be back to taking pot shots at each other around corners. She was doing it to save that small bunch of decent people who just wanted to live. 

The HUDS up selected her first target with a 90% accuracy. She raised the minigun and let the tracking system guide her movements and then she unleashed hell. Perhaps it was the noise of the minigun, or the muted effect of the metal she wore, but she didn't realise she was shouting one long broken note until the minigun overheated and she was forced to let it spin down for a moment. She stepped back from the ledge, noticing the ricochet of sudden bullet fire off her armor and she dropped back behind cover. A grenade shot past her head and she dived left. Tears were streaming down her cheeks she realised with horror as she tasted salt. The explosion hit her like a pressure blast and she jolted forward, her chest aching. The minigun beeped and her HUDS informed her it was ready. 

A life sign appeared behind her and she startled, spinning the gun to face her new assailant, and freezing as Jack stood arms up, his lips moving, he'd clearly been shouting her. She tapped her head indicating that her hearing was compromised inside the thing. Maybe it was defective, she could take a look at the wiring later, it had been sat rusting on a rooftop perhaps since the chopper had been downed. Jack stalked up to her and looked at her hard, she realised that like this he couldn't see her face and she spoke. Her voice came out mechanical and unnatural.

“There's another group huddled further down. I haven't got the range for that and they're smart enough to keep trying to draw me into wasting bullets. Maybe 8.” she replied. “They're persistent Jack, they want something in here. Or someone, no way this is just random aggression they've taken too many losses for that.” Which meant Preston hadn't been straight with them, or maybe they hadn't asked the right questions and he hadn't volunteered the information was more likely, after all helping or not he didn't know them from atom. 

Jack nodded and pulled up the P90, it had the range but maybe not the accuracy. It was designed for close quarter and short range obliteration of armoured targets, like the Jaffa, not sniping. He popped his head up and clearly decided the same thing as he ducked back down and bullets peppered the area where his head had been showering him in dust. He unstrapped the laser musket he'd picked up from around his chest.

“Let's give this baby a try.” He shouted over the racket of gunfire and she mostly made it out, but she was more impressed that he seemed to know how to use it, he handled it like Preston might have explained the operation in the brief time she assumed he was down with them. But then he'd always had a knack for weapons and technology no matter what he protested, if it could be fired, he'd make it work. Probably all that latent Ancient knowledge swimming in his advanced if not fully utilised brain. Although she'd always known he was smarter than he pretended it just wasn't 'nerd' smart as he'd call it. Although she'd seen his math skill in action numerous times, they didn't let idiot jarheads test fighter jets.

“I'm going to draw them out.” Sam replied cutting off her own musings in her admiration of the man with a smear of grime across his forehead and a harried if somewhat exhilarated expression on his face. Jack's head shot to hers in a moment of clear disagreement for that plan. She shrugged, and the movement was mostly lost in the metal as she charged for the ledge ignoring his shouts of protest as she leapt from it. The HUDS had already calculated the distance to the floor and seemed to have linked up with her PipBoy because it was telling her that whilst the suits legs had clearly sustained damage and were operating at only 20% efficiency, they could easily absorb the fall damage. The landing was jarring and she gasped as she felt the shockwaves translate up the metal frame. Her bones seemed to rattle in their own frame for a second and she forced her legs to move to some cover as she pulled up the minigun and strode out into the line of fire and let rip at the cluster of raiders behind a downed vehicle.

She got a couple, but they'd started in on some heavy ordinance. A missile missed her by a hairsbreadth and she gasped as it exploded into the building beside her, collapsing it in on itself in a shower of debris and noise. Her hands were shaking she realised as she turned back and cranked up the minigun again. Then one of them literally liquified into a puddle of red goo and she traced the arc of the shot to Jack on the ledge. She caught the General’s surprised expression... okay so that weapon obliterated the targets, good to know.

There was a sudden scream from the raiders and Sam turned her head back in time to watch as the metal of what had clearly once been some sort of underground subway grate burst open and something huge black, horned and scaled erupted with a god almighty raw that had the raiders screaming and suddenly darting her way, they weren't even wasting bullets on it she noted absently as she stared at the hulking thing.

“What the hell?!” she managed as it stood and pounded its chest with huge clawed elongated fingers. If she didn't know better she'd think it was a huge mutated dinosaur/werewolf hybrid. It didn't look natural, it seemed to have amor plating across key vitals.

Her HUDS display was relaying data back to her and she balked. She was in a tank, but that thing was a tank. Her Pipboy named the creature and she blinked looking at the stats displayed for her. 

Species: Deathclaw  
Origin: Bioengineered weapon system, further mutation with FEV.  
Weapon: Claws, teeth,  
Abilities: Shockwave, beserker rage, strength, rapid regeneration, thick hide, speed  
Resistances: Damage: energy/electric, radiation and poison  
Weaknesses: None  
Tactics: Rapid fire, high calibre bullets, explosives

“What no acid for blood.” she bit out sarcastically, trying to manage her fear as the raiders darted past her and Jack continued methodically taking them out one by one.

One of the Raiders slammed into her and she rocked back, but his eyes were half on her half on the Deathclaw. He had some sort of stripes on his shoulder pads and he had the look of a man that had failed. Was this the leader?  
“Where is she, where is the old bitch!” He screamed at her. “She knew this was coming, knew it, she said I'd see red when I died.”

The red beam of Jack's gun hit him soundly and Sam stared as he crumbled to a red crystalline puddle at her feet. Sam paused for a minute, breathing sharply. ‘The old woman’, there had been an old woman with the group inside. This was all about her?

“Carter!” Jack bellowed and she glanced up in time to see the monstrous thing turn in her direction.

“Crap.” she muttered. Setting her feet and pointing her mini-gun at it before letting rip. It was tough and mad as all hell she realised, perhaps the noise of her gun had woken it up where it was sleeping in the old underground subways she noted, seeing the signpost behind it. Double crap, it was in a bad mood.

It flung a car at her and she scrambled trying to dodge as it hurtled into her and she flew back several feet impacting with a thud that jostled her teeth. “Ouch.” she managed, gasping wondering if she'd just bruised her ribs, nothing felt broken but her minigun was lying where she'd dropped it about 10 yards away.

There were dual red weapons blasts now and she looked up to see Preston had joined Jack on the ledge and they were trying to distract the thing. 

“CARTER!” Jack bellowed and she forced the servos to move, unlocking her joints from the brace they'd set in and she got to her feet, with a wave of acknowledgement.

“I'm fine, I'm fine.” she panted out, and forced her legs to move closer to the hulking thing that was now charging towards them. It's roar deafening. It stopped suddenly and she flinched as it lifted its foot and stomped. The ground trembled and she struggled to remain upright. Shockwave. Lovely she thought, rolling into a skid that scraped the paintwork on her metal frame as she locked her arms around the minigun again. 

“Carter... make something explode... something big!” Jack roared, “Fire in the hole!” he bellowed and she ducked down behind a mailbox of all things as he and Preston began to herd the thing with grenades that seemed to be doing little more than annoy it. Sam glanced up around her shelter and realised that one of the cars was smoking on fire. She frowned. She still had no idea what powered them, but her HUDS was telling her that there was an imminent risk of explosion from it. That would do. She turned the mini-gun on the car.

“Get it to the car!” She shouted back, hoping he heard her as her weapon fired back up and she forced it closer herself. Then she focused her attention on the car, sending round after round into it as the Deathclaw barrelled closer its huge claws the size of her entire arm she realised. If it got to her she'd be mangled in seconds. It jumped onto the roof of the car and Sam let out a cry of elation as Jack got a strike on target the grenade lodging itself inside the cars rusted metal frame.

The whole thing lit up like a Christmas tree... with a distinctive boom and flash of radiation she assumed. Holy shit, they'd just triggered a very small nuclear reaction she realised as she was thrown back onto the floor and her readouts screamed at her about radiation damage. But as she raised her head she blinked through the smoke. Her HUDS displayed no life signs ahead of her.

“WOOOOH!” Jack roared, Sam didn't need to see him to know he was punching the air. She coughed and collapsed onto her back, spent.

She didn't have to wait long, he'd scrambled down from the roof and got to her as she was removing the damn helmet, apparently the whole thing was built from interchangeable detachable pieces. Ingenious really. “Carter.” he panted, skidding to a stop beside her. “You okay?”

“Peachy.” she muttered, spitting out blood, apparently she'd bitten her tongue at some point. Probably from being hit by a car. “Nothing permanent, few bruises and scrapes.” She added when he seemed to want to start patting her down looking for damage and realising he couldn’t get to her inside her tin can.

“Suits cool.” he replied finally on seeing her face and clear relief in his eyes when he accepted she was mostly unscathed. “What the hell was that thing?” he pressed, but his eyes were on Preston, who'd joined them.

“Deathclaw.” She and Preston replied in unison and Jack quirked an eyebrow at her.

“HUDS up display, linked to the PipBoy. Tactical 411 on the go.”

“Nice.” Jack hissed, looking appreciatively at the armor with new desires. 

“It's all yours.” Sam groaned, “Next time you be bait.”

“I... I can't thank you enough.” Preston managed, as he and Jack stuck their arms out, both helping her get back upright, which was harder than it looked in one of these damn suits. “You saved us.”

“Ah it was nothing, walk in the park.” Jack quipped. “Although, they seemed mighty determined for a bunch of raiders looking to scavenge.”

Preston stiffened. “Alright, I'll level with you, they've been following us, targeting us.”

“Not all of you. Just the old lady.” Sam replied, Preston frowned and Sam pointed at the red puddle of goo that she thought had been the leader. “He was ranting at me about her before he died.”

Preston stared at the puddle for a minute. “Jared. Mean son of a bitch, but clever. Your right, he wanted Mama Murphy, she's got the ‘Sight’ you see. Guess he wanted to use it.”

Sam and Jack exchanged a look. Preston shook his head. “Yeah I know how it sounds, I was doubtful myself, she gets herself shot up full of that crap and thinks she can talk to the Universe, see its secrets.” he sighed, “She's going to put herself in the ground if she keeps taking that shit.”

But Sam glanced at the body again, remembering what he'd said. “She predicted his death though.” Sam murmured, recalling what he'd said about 'seeing red' at his end.

Preston slid his weapon onto his back and straightened his hat, a distracting gesture for a moment, but she stared hard at him, not relenting. “Alright, on occasion she might have said something that's been... helpful. Maybe even seen somethings coming that meant we aren't all dead right now. Like this library.” he glanced between them. “She said help was coming from the great beyond. That it would take us to Sanctuary.”

Sam deliberately didn't look at Jack, not wanting to give anything away, I mean as visions went, that one was pretty accurate if a little vague but then perhaps she'd chosen her words carefully. They'd encountered people with abilities before, was it so hard to imagine that on an irradiated world, populated by mutated creatures that humans might not have developed a few mutations of their own?

Jack cleared his throat. “Well... ain't that the damndest thing.” he paused and took off his cap, running his hand over his hair in a nervous gesture that Sam knew well. “Looks like Ol' Mama Murphy was right on the money, you see, that place we told you about, that we'd be willing to help you get to.” He nailed Preston with a look. “Town's called Sanctuary.” 

Preston's expression didn't flicker, then quite suddenly it split into a grin and the two of them were laughing and clapping each other on the back like old friends and Sam was struck again by the 'boy's club' that military men always seemed to form. A twinge of jealousy flared and she pushed it away. She was happy. They'd killed a monster, saved some people and would probably be getting new neighbours. “There's a robot butler too.” Jack was telling Preston as they walked back to the library no doubt to tell the group.

“No kidding?” she heard Preston chuckle. “Damn, guess it really is our lucky day.”

Sam was literally left holding the mini-gun as she grumbled and picked up the helmet and tucked it under her arm, not quite willing to go back under there. “I'm fine here, thanks by the way.” she called back but they were already too far away and she rolled her eyes. Men. She pulled the bandana she’d promised Jack she’d wear back up, better safe than sorry and whilst the helmet would have done a better job of concealing her, the cap and bandana would have to do for now.

They didn’t hang about long, Preston was apparently keen to move on, by putting as much distance between this place and the mess they left as possible. Sam had barely finished scavenging a couple of the bodies, however distasteful it was for valuable resources when they all emerged. She handed the first couple weapons. One of the younger men with the toolbelt joined her and stripped some boots and some goggles off another.

He dangled the goggles in front of her. “You need these?”

She shook her head. “Ah, no your good.” she added and he grinned popping them over his head. Sam blinked up at him as he stretched out his hand to her in invitation as they squatted over their distasteful task like it was nothing. 

“I'm Sturges, I fix things.” he introduced himself and Sam smiled despite herself, surprised and genuinely thrilled that they weren't alone on this planet. Or continent. That human life existed and it was mostly normal. Even a little cute she noted, smiling behind her bandana where he couldn’t see. But without her sunglasses on at least he could hopefully read it in her eyes. 

Sam took his extended fingers. “Sam... I fix things too.”

He looked around. “And kick some serious ass by the looks of it. Damn. Wish we'd run into you a little sooner, we used to be a group twice this size.”

The news was a bit startling but he didn't seem too bothered, although she was certain his facade was masking a certain amount of shock and numbness to it all. “Well, the power armor did most of the work.” she admitted.

“Yeah, those things are cool. I've seen one a couple of times, apparently they were real common before the war, for the military types. Tell you what, we get to this safe place of yours I might have some parts we can use to fix up the bust legs.” he noted and she blinked, clearly he had a good eye. Useful.

“That would be great, thanks.” she admitted and stood.

“Cool. We better go, Preston's not much for waiting.” he indicated the group and she looked up, Jack was watching but not watching her interaction, alert. He wasn't about to leave her she knew that no matter what Preston did, and given as they knew the way to Sanctuary she doubted they'd be going until she was ready but there really was no reason to hang around, that just seemed like a good way to get shot in these parts. She stood, the joints of the suit creaking as she followed, she'd had enough of this place anyway.

Sam caught up with Jack briefly as they walked, he indicated the old woman with his head nod. “I had a quick chat with the Ol' gal, bit of a piece of work, she told me to bring her something called Jet and we'd talk.” he admitted, his eyes scanning the area before he focussed back on her for a moment whilst the others took a quick breather. He scuffed his feet.

Observing him quietly Sam nudged him with her elbow. “And?” she pressed knowing there was something else from his little tells, although like her it was harder to tell with his face so covered up.

“No and.” he griped, his voice going up a bit at the end, dead give away. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“She told you something, didn't she, and your all freaked out by it.” He winced and avoided looking at her. “Suit yourself.” she snarked as she walked off to go talk to Mama Murphy herself. Honestly he could be so sensitive sometimes.

The old woman apparently had eyes in the back of her head... or bat like hearing, because she spun on her as she approached, eyeing her with a milky mostly slightless eyes, that somehow saw her just fine. “Eheh. I told your man, no visions until I get some chems. They help the sight you see.” The woman croaked around a voice that sounded like she’d smoked 50 a day for the last 50 years.

Sam nodded. “That’s not all you said to him.” Sam pressed, her tone brooking no argument. Mama Murphy fixed an eye on her.  
“You two ain't from around here are ya?” she pointed a gnarled finger at her.

“You could say that.” Sam replied cagily.

“I do, and would, and will. But I ain't saying nothing, you got a need, maybe I got an answer about your ‘ring of stars’.” Mama Murphy gave her a toothless grin at Sam's stunned expression. “Ah, now she sees it she believes it. Science type huh.” she chuckled. 

“Fine. We'll get you your chems, but Preston's right, they'll kill you eventually you know.” Sam told her feeling the need to at least offer that nugget of wisdom and concern. 

Mama Murphy shrugged, “Bah, I'm old for the wasteland, and I done seen enough crap that if I want to forget it and see what I can see in here,” she tapped her temple, “then that's my business. Price went up, one person one vision. The questions he's got aint the same as yours. So he gets me my jet... you, you get me my mentats.” Sam watched Mama Murphy wander off, back towards Preston who wouldn't bombard her with questions and Sam sidled up to Jack.

“So, the Ol'Bat share any of her sage wisdom with you?” Jack asked, checking his mag, and generally avoiding looking at her.

“Apparently my price for questions about a 'ring of stars', her words not mine' is a pack of mentats.” Sam replied with a huff. She had some of those back at Sanctuary. Jack knew that.  
“We're going to have to travel all the way with them aren't we?” Sam pointed out and he nodded.

“Looks like Carter. She maybe got some answers for us, or at least a heading. But she's a tough Old broad, we'll have to pay.” Jack admitted and she nodded. She suspected they could probably get this ‘jet’ she already knew where there was a box of mentats after all having found them in the medkit on the first day in Sanctuary. 

They walked in silence after that, taking out the odd attack from a swarm of giant mosquitoes 'or blood bugs' as Sturgess called them. They didn't hit any more problems and they approached the bridge to Sanctuary. It was a good spot she admitted having seen a lot of the rest of the Commonwealth, the sun had set and the dark was rolling in. That was one thing she wasn't sure she'd get used to, how dark the nights were. Codsworth met them at the entrance and his delighted voice as he introduced himself to each of the group was something at least.

“So, home sweet home.” Jack muttered. He pointed to the home they'd been fixing up. “I've been working on this one,” he pointed out, “It's watertight mostly, got a few carrots and some weird potato looking things planted out back, fertiliser and what nots behind the shed.” he added. “Couple of beds we dragged in and across the ways, he pointed to the other houses. We can all bunk down in here tonight if you like, then you can go find your own spots.”

“That a workbench?” Sturgess strode up on the porch of the house they'd picked and examined it.

“Yeah.” Sam admitted, pleased to have someone else take an interest “There's an old generator I found in one of the basements of the house over the back there. I was planning on fixing it, getting the whole thing hooked up.” she pulled out the tool box she'd found. “Even got some tools, there's a power saw, couple of other bits and bobs in that container there.” She added.

“You were leaving town, why'd you leave this, I mean this is a great place?” The Asian looking woman, Marcie... something or other looked around her eyes narrowed suspiciously like she was still expecting it all to go wrong. In fact Sam thought she’d been eyeing her shiftily from the start.

Sam smiled thinly. “Its safe. We just... we needed to go look for something. Answers maybe.” she added cryptically and Marcie nodded, dropping it as she wandered off and Sam felt slightly possessive when she plonked herself down on the bedding area she'd been using until yesterday. Which was ridiculous, one spot of ground was as good as another. 

But still she was a little relieved when Jack hunkered down next to her and they set the usual campfire and shared out the meagre rations of canned food they’d found. It was nice to have company, even if this little shell shocked mostly unwashed group looked like they’d never stop jumping at shadows.

Sam left the power armour in the corner of the room behind her and Jack, just a precaution but the damn thing was a weapon, so she carefully removed and pocketed the fusion core. It had come in handy and she didn’t fancy someone walking off with it in the night. After all, they still didn’t know these people.

Jack handed her a can of something that seemed remarkably like macaroni and cheese, patting the seat beside him as she slowly removed her leather jacket and the hat. Letting her short shock of blonde hair spill out, vibrant again since their recent shower in the Vault.

“Wow… now that is some colour of hair.” Sturgess exclaimed and eased down opposite them. “So you came out of a vault huh?” he asked and he indicated Preston with a thumb. “Preston said.” He added in explanation.

“Yep.” Jack replied. “Frozen solid like popsicles the whole time though so you know, not a lot to tell.”

Sturgess was still looking fascinated between them. “So you two are like a genuine couple of relics, frozen back before the bombs… man what a wake up.” He admitted, but he kept staring at Sam’s hair, Jack seemed to notice too and cleared his throat.

“So where’d you grow up.” He asked deflecting his interest.

“Oh. Actually I moved up to Boston from New Vegas.” He admitted grinning. “Fancied a bit of a quieter life.”

Sam felt herself still for a moment. “This is the quiet life?” she asked looking at him with her macaroni half way to her mouth.

“Oh yeah. Man Vegas is a party town, great place to grow up and learn a trade, I was into machines had this great guy took me under his wing and showed me which end of a wrench to hold. Thing with Vegas though, its kind of hard to get out of if you know what I mean, not without paying someone off. Man I was up to my ears in debt. Managed to score myself a gig with a caravan though and well… got a couple of years off that, made some cash… lost it, drank it.” He grinned, nodding at Jack as if thinking he had a kindred there.  
“Then stumbled into this little farmstead with Jun and his family and Mama Murphy. Was going pretty well till the raiders came a calling. Rest as they say, his history.”

Jack nodded. “Vegas huh.” He nodded and eyed Sam for a moment. “We spent some time in Nevada.” He admitted. “Mostly the desert.” He added cryptically, and Sam smirked, thinking that the idea of Area 51 would hardly faze this guy.

“So, you two a couple?” Sturgess asked, and Sam made a conscious effort not to shift uncomfortably.

“Yes.” Jack replied. “Married. Before the war.” He reached over and placed a hand on Sam’s thigh. “Happily.” He grinned with just a hint of teeth, squeezing her leg a little for effect and to reassure her.

She knew better than to react badly to being claimed by her CO. It had happened far too often out in the field the moment one of the team got a whiff of anything that had a remotely ‘festival’, or where women were considered second class citizens vibe. She’d just learnt to live with it and accept that women were generally treated as lesser until a society reached a certain level of advancement. It seemed to just be a human evolutionary stage to undervalue half its population.

“Lucky.” Sturgess admitted after a moment, dipping his finger into his can and sucking on it, swiping it around to get the last dregs, “To still have each other after all this I mean. I was kinda sweet on this one guy, back in Vegas, turns out he was a Synth though. One of those next gen ones.” He shook his head.  
“Had to blow his head off with a damn shotgun when he went all twitchy on me one morning. Caught him trying to steal parts.” He shook his head. “Didn’t much care to put my trust in someone else after that, much safer to sleep alone, if you get me.” He sighed.

Sam exchanged a look with Jack, there was a risk of course, of revealing how little you knew, but then there was also the risk of remaining just plain ignorant.

“What’s a synth?” Jack took the plunge, looking a little bit more relaxed since Sturgess had mentioned his ex-love had been a male. Sam almost felt the need to remind him that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t still interested in one of them, but felt it better to just let him be on this, they had enough to worry about as it was.

Sturgess blinked. “Man you guys are fresh out the Vault aren’t you.” He shook his head ruefully. “You know. Humanoid-robots, like the ones before the war… only, well these ones are so good now that you can’t spot them. Look like regular humans, some even have memory patches, real ones think their human an everything. But trust me, they ain’t they got a head full of wiring and sparks.” He muttered. “Kind of cool really, but dangerous, the Institute’s been replacing people for years with these bastards. Dunno why really, but its creepy. Fooled me anyway.”

Sam swallowed, robots that looked like humans… she’d heard that line before. Why the hell was it always robots! The thought of Fifth hit her again and she shuddered at the memory and the nagging thought that maybe, maybe, this wasn’t real. That this would be just the type of place he’d of created in her head to trap her. Making the Institute that made humanoid robots the enemy would just be the icing on the cake. Give her a foe she could really sink her teeth into and watch her immerse herself. 

Sam tried to shake the idea and looked away not wanting Jack to see her and maybe read her expression, she hadn’t revealed to him the extent of her delusions and struggles to find her way back to normality and reality after what Fifth had done to her, she hadn’t really gone into much detail at all, other than that he’d tortured here because he was mad and he’d let her go when she was of no more use to him. The explanation and the assurance that she was ‘fine’ had been enough for Jack. But that had never sat well with her. The convenience of Fifth letting her go, and Jack reappearing alive and well with a superweapon against the replicators, just in the nick of time to save the Asgard. Everything tied up in a neat little bow, sometimes on her worst days she still struggled to swallow that as reality.

She stayed quiet after that, happy for Jack to press the questions about this Institute and its technology. How they still existed and where they might be, all the things she wanted to know. Sturgess wasn’t much more help though, other than to know that the Institute had supposedly developed from before the war and then just… gone to ground. Popping up with ever more advanced tech and laser weapons, like the Wasteland was one giant petri-dish to them. Sam wondered if it was worse than that, and just a game in some robots sick fantasy. Her eyes drifted to Jack for a moment who was talking animatedly with Sturgess, seemingly eager to know more about New Vegas and the way people lived out here. The hollow thought settled inside of her as she watched him. If this really was Fifth’s sick head games, then just like with her fantasy-Pete… Jack wasn’t really Jack. It was a dangerous line of thought and she ripped herself back from sliding fully down it, terrified that if she chased that idea to the bottom of the slope, she’d never claw her way back up. 

That night as she lay down on the mattress Jack had insisted on dragging from the cellar where it had been preserved ‘for his back’ on the floor, surrounded for once by the sounds of sleeping, snoring bodies she stared at the wall, with Jack’s hand pressed flat against her back, the barest contact yet it was more than he’d ever offered, or dared before. She could feel the closeness and heat of him behind her. He was Jack… he was too perfectly Jack to be anything else, and this world was too chaotic and awful to be anything but real. Fifth lacked the imagination to create something this fucked up… surely.


	5. Homestead

And so, began their new life in Sanctuary. She kept expecting them to leave, that Jack would grab their things and tell her it was time to go. But then she was slowly starting to recall as she watched him building, planting and generally enjoying the freedom to make a home for them all here, that Jack really did want the simple life. Perhaps that had been the appeal of Edora after all, a legitimate reason to hang up his gun. 

But he had purpose here, shoring up the defences was his new plan whilst she was working on a water purification system. The generator hadn't taken long to get going, not with the help of the fusion core from the power armour suit anyway. In the mean-time Sturgess was helping her to get that repaired. He was something of a blacksmith, and they had an abundance of junk materials to scrap. Useful skill and she couldn't help but feel that finding them was something of a gift. Even Marcie and that miserable Jun were starting to earn their keep, farming kept him from moaning and her from bitching about everything. 

Which bought her back to why she was stood thigh deep in irradiated water. 

“You’re crazy.” Sturgess muttered but he was grinning, which meant he was still willing to help. But then again, he’d called her crazy at least twice a day since they got here.

“Look. You just have to hold it.” She admitted with a hint of exasperation and he rolled his eyes at her, not buying it. At least as assistants went he was better than Bill Lee and a damn sight more resilient.

“Yeah. Just stand in the pig swill water holding that damn copper cable and let you light me up.” He shook his head. “You might have that Old General wrapped around your finger. But I see you. You like living right pressed up against the edge.” He hopped into the water and held his hand out for the wire. “Fortunately, I like the edge.” Sam grinned and he braced himself. “Come on then, I don’t have all bloody day.” He snapped and she charged running straight at him and stepping up onto his thighs and up onto his shoulders, he grasped the back of her calves and she balanced there for a moment, reaching up for the metal tank of the rusted water purifier they’d been working on the last two days straight, which she hoped should actually get rid of most the radiation and other contaminants. It was a brilliant design that she couldn’t take credit for, as she’d pretty much found it this way, she was just fixing it. Apparently the nuclear generators that had used to power this area had sometimes leaked and they’d had these things set up all over, or at least Codsworth informed her, she wasn’t entirely certain his memory banks were completely intact some days.

“God your heavier than you look blondie.” Sturgess groaned, lifting her up by her feet as she used her upper body strength to pull herself up at a dead lift. Swinging her legs up to hook around the piping. She grunted and he pushed and between them she hoisted herself up onto the metal rig. She hung her arm back down and he jumped up, slapping the wire into her hand.

“I reckon there’s an easier way to do this.” Sturgess replied.

“Easier yes… but not faster.” She grinned back down at him. “You really want to keep drinking water that rots your insides and tastes like piss?” He sighed, of course he didn’t but she doubted he remembered the taste of fresh water. She’d only been here a month and had already forgotten. 

She clambered up to the top and threaded the wire through, until she reached the connector securing the two. She turned back down to look at Sturgess from her position straddling the water tank. “Go start the genny.” She indicated the generator on the bank they’d already got back into some form of working order.

He gave it a look then back at her position. “If I fry you, he’s the sort that will gut me isn’t he?” Referring to Jack of course, and she winced, possibly. Although she wasn’t actually his wife as Sturgess believed. But he’d definitely have a few choice words to say to her corpse and his.

“I won’t fry.” She replied… hoping that was true. There was a minor risk of electrocution it was true, but what was life without a little risk and Sturgess was right this was her kind of excitement and it made a change from wiping out all manner of nasty and raiders that tried to get into their town. 

“Here goes something.” She muttered as the genny kicked into life with a sputter and shudder, belching out smoke. She waited a moment connecting a giant electrical turbine in a body of water wasn’t the wisest thing she’d done. The structure was mostly reclaimed from the one already here that she doubted had ever functioned, but she’d added a grounding cable and some capacitors to buffer it all, she hoped that would be enough to get power to it. Electricity arced and she sat bolt upright as she felt her hairs stand on end. But that was it she glanced at the turbines grinning when they started to turn and the tanks lit to green. She turned and grinned down to Sturgess. 

“See no problem!” she called out with a thumbs up, starting to climb down, she hung there for a moment and he grinned, stepping into the water to help catch her on the way down… except he barely got a foot in before it crackled and he shot back with a sizzle smoke coming from him as he lay on the ground and groaned.

“Shit.” She muttered. Of course Jack chose that moment to appear as she was dangling over a clearly electrified water source a smoking man on the ground. The metal pipe she was holding onto buckled and she went plunging into the water with the yell of “Carter!” in her ears from Jack her last moment of vision as she hit the surface and electricity arced through her dragging her suddenly limp body under was Jack diving for the generator as pain lanced her and her teeth locked together.

The pain stopped and her muscles unclenched but her muscles twitched, fortunately the river she was in was shallow and she managed to sit up, breaking the surface spluttering as hands grabbed her bodily under her arms and dragged her to the shore and dropped her on to her back as she struggled to get her breath, her entire body convulsing and numb. “Ow.” She managed weakly as she lay next to Sturgess who was moaning and glaring at her darkly.

He sat up slowly, coughing as he sat up, his hair on end and his ears a bit red but he looked otherwise unharmed. “You okay?” She rasped asked Sturgess and he nodded.

“Fine… little jolt of several 100 volts always wakes me up.” He muttered and accepted Jack’s hand getting to his feet.

Jack knelt down beside her, examining her, his hands on her neck, then her legs, as if looking for damage. “What the hell were you doing!” He roared at her and she winced, her ears were ringing as she plonked her head back on the ground. 

“Must have missed an exposed wire.” She groaned, placing her hands over her eyes and blocking out the sun, she was getting a headache, which given the alternative she was quite pleased about.

“You nearly died electrocuting yourself!” Jack snarled, grabbing her by the front of her leather jacket and pulling her back up and into his arms, seemingly not willing to trust that she might not be dead without reassurance. She accepted the hug, because she was pleased to be alive too, despite the situation. 

“Technically I think it would have been the drowning that got me.” She muttered, coughing a little to dislodge the rest of the water she’d inadvertently inhaled and giving into the sensation to just vomit it up as she tried not to think about just how damaging that irradiated water was.

“That’s not better!” he hissed, looking furious and terrified and exasperated which was a lot of things to see inches from your face when your brain was still scrambled.

“I can fix it.” She assured, attempting to get up only to fall back on her ass and into Jack’s arms.

“Sit the hell down Carter.” He snapped, reverting back to her surname was a sure sign he was pissed. Her eyes were on the rig. 

“Well we’re not dead!” Sturgess piped up a few minutes of awkward silence later and Sam chuckled, which made him laugh. Jack just glared at them both. She didn’t mention that she was just lucky the whole thing hadn’t blown up, but from the slightly relieved look on Sturgess’ face she thought he probably already knew that.

“You two are going to give me a heart attack.” He muttered. “For Christ sake.”

“I’m hungry.” Sturgess groaned and sniffed the air. “Do I smell BBQ?” 

Jack got to his feet, and pulled her up to hers, keeping his arm around her waist. “How about we take a break. Preston’s grilling up some Radstag steaks and Marcie swears by this green plant stuff.” He slipped his hand into her arm and she sighed, he wasn’t about to just let her carry on she realised. And if she was honest, maybe almost dying earned her a bit of a break.  
“You can blow you and Sturgess up later… now’s chow time.” And with a huff she let him lead her away to Sturgess mild complaints about the sole of his foot being cooked as he hopped along beside her. She put her hand out and helped as Jack grabbed his other arm and together the three of them managed to stumble their way back to camp as she finally got her legs working. 

“I’ve got some stuff for that in the medkit.” Sam offered the other man and he nodded, apparently she’d been lucky enough to come out of this with little more than a bad hangover and a slight metallic sensation on her numb tongue.

“Yeah, and I’ve got whiskey.” Jack replied as they reached their makeshift camp which was slowly staring to look like a small series of cobbled together homes. Sam thought she knew which remedy Sturgess was going to take first. “I’ll sort your foot.” Jack told Sturgess, “Trust me you don’t want Sam to get her hands on a medkit, she might try and splint something…” he shook his head indicating he really didn’t want that and she grinned at the memory, less traumatic now with time. She caught his eye and his shit eating grin, but there was a flicker of amusement there, she kind of enjoyed the idea of Jack teasing her she realised and pretended for mock indignation as she stomped off to the sounds of Sturgess regaling the others with their brush with death. 

It was a nice night, warm, Sam sat on the derelict roof of one of the houses they hadn’t gotten to yet, drinking the bottle of rum she’d stashed and staring out across the bridge from Sanctuary that led out to the wastelands watching the sun set. The pleasant and oddly familiar smell of barbeque and fire wafting over her. This little group had been here 12 days now and already this place was starting to feel more like a community, even a home. Which considering how dire about their situation she’d felt when they’d first squatted down in the ruins of this place she was mildly amazed by. Obviously so far they hadn’t had much in the way of attacks and they were shoring-up defences so it was easy to feel a little more at home, but it wouldn’t last. Raiders would come eventually and try and tear down or steal what they were building here. Which meant that they could never really relax. Every day here would be a struggle to survive. She wondered if this was what it had felt like out on the Frontiers in the old West? Although there wasn’t quite the same exotic array of terrifying creatures and monsters just beyond the horizon waiting to eat you alive.

There was a rattle and she felt the roof move she reached for her gun on instinct, her breath catching for a moment.

“Hey.” Jack’s voice called out and she put the gun down, sliding the safety back on and placing it on the roof beside her. 

“Hey.” She replied, not quite mustering a smile. There was a line of tension that seemed to pull tight between them now whenever they were alone. Not helped by the fact that he’d watched her like a hawk all afternoon and into the evening. Not hovering, but close enough should she ‘relapse’ or experience any side effects of her minor incident earlier. She expected another rebuke, or possibly a guilt trip about her recklessness, he gave her neither. Just sat down beside her, pulling his knees up to his chest, she saw his eyes drop to her gun and nod with acknowledgement of her caution. The Wastes wasn’t a place to go unarmed, not anywhere.

“So, nice night?” he offered.

“Nice sunset at any rate.” She admitted, hugging her knees and dropping her head to them. Placing the rum down between them where he could see it.

“Balmy.” He added with a huff of exasperation that she felt too. He reached out and grasped the bottle, took a sniff and winced. Rum wasn’t really his thing, he took a small sip and made an even worse face before returning it to her, ignoring her smirk.

“We really going to talk about the weather?” She asked finally when he didn’t offer anything more as she stared over at him with a half grin at the ridiculousness of that. He grinned back and shook his head with a shrug.

“You want to be alone?” he asked after a few minutes of silence, she turned her head to look at him in profile. His strong jaw, less defined now with several weeks’ worth of beard growth, he looked more casual than she’d ever seen him; almost relaxed if that was possible out here.

“It’s fine.” She murmured. “I was just, not-thinking for once.” She replied with a sigh.

Jack looked sideways at her. “Wow.” He glanced at the bottle of rum with new appreciation. “Note to self. Carter and rum go together.”

She smirked and picked up the bottle taking another swig. It really wasn’t bad rum to be fair, she tended more towards vodka usually but without something to soften it she’d decided rum neat was a better prospect. He pulled a small bottle of what she knew was Whiskey from out of his vest and waved it at her with a sly grin.

“Ah.” She grinned, “So there’s sharing with our group and then there’s alcohol…” she laughed lightly. He smirked and pressed the bottle to his lips, taking a long swig. Apparently they were both quite happy to descend into casual alcoholism out here to take the edge off.

“Well it’s not from the Old South but it’ll do.” He smacked his lips and placed it down beside them. “You want?” he asked and she reached for the bottle, deciding that half the reason she wanted it was just to place her lips where his were. She didn’t second guess that impulse, just lifted the bottle and pressed her mouth to it, imaging she could taste his before the burn of the alcohol hit. She winced and handed it back, swallowing hastily. 

“Wow that’s strong.” She muttered, wiping her mouth. 

“Yep.” Jack grinned. “Sturgess is passed out on the back porch, I asked Jun and Preston to tuck him in whilst I went in search of my wife who also nearly killed herself today, apparently.” She wasn’t imagining the sound of recrimination there.

Sam pursed her lips and turned her head back out to the sunset. Wife. A necessary lie she supposed, but a painful one, given as she was supposed to be getting ready to be someone else’s wife. Pete wouldn’t understand the pull between her and Jack, how could she expect him to. The way it felt to be a team like theirs, more like a family. To know some aspects of the man beside her better than even herself, whilst other’s remained a necessary mystery.

“It bother you… the wife thing?” He seemed to pick up on her thoughts effortlessly as she looked around but not at her, like an uncomfortable teenager rather than a 50-year-old General and she couldn’t help but find that endearing. God she had a type, Jonas was right, she liked them slightly broken.  
“If so I can put it right.” He continued, “Tell them I was just looking out for you.” He added, sounding like he understood that maybe he’d painted her into a corner of sorts. If they really were stuck here, then in theory she could find love again, it didn’t have to be with him. God knows where, but she could. But not with the weight of his claim around her neck, they didn’t really know the stigma around here regarding divorce or adultery, perhaps it was safer to claim friends… or occasional partners, something more casual and less permanent to spare them both. After all she wasn’t going to kid herself that maybe the idea of tying himself to her out here in this bleak wasteland wasn’t really his idea of fun either.

“Does it bother you?” She asked feeling bold with the rum in her system making her lips tingle pleasantly as she turned her head back to look at him, the sun had dipped below the horizon now and the shadows were starting to get longer as night swept in, making it harder to see him. But she figured there had been enough unspoken between them, she needed to ask at least once more.

He sucked in a breath and took another drink. “Why would it bother me?” He asked genuinely sounding confused by her question, she didn’t point out the fact that he’d asked her the same damn thing, the hypocrisy of Jack sometimes bewildered her. It was like he knew how others might react and feel but then barred himself from those same things.

“Jack.” She broached and he tensed, looking at her sharply, as if sensing the depth of the approaching conversation from her tone. “If this is it, if we’re stuck here forever, which I’m not saying it is, but I haven’t had any brilliant brain waves other than staying alive for another month or two… hence the water sanitiser.” She muttered and took another swig of her rum, taking the Dutch courage where she could.  
“But if we are, do you really want to tie yourself down to me?” The question hurt but she had to pose it, they were a team yes, but there was a difference to being in a team together for the past almost decade and having to live out the remainder of their lives in each other’s pockets.

He frowned, she saw that expression quite clearly as his head bowed and he played with the label on the bottle of his whiskey. “I don’t see it that way.” He replied finally. She quirked an eyebrow not responding, he was going to have to give her more than that if he wanted anything more out of her. “I mean. We’re a team Carter. I’ve got your back until you tell me to piss off. And even then I’ll probably check in… a lot.”

She stared at him, dropping her knees to assume a crossed leg position and consider his response. “Jack, what if you meet someone out here? I mean, we don’t own each other. You have the right to be happy, even here.” She admitted. “I just, what I’m saying is, you don’t have to feel obligated to stay with me out of some sense of duty. You’re not my CO out here. Not anymore. I’m not your responsibility.”

He grimaced and his eyes narrowed a second. “Bullshit.” He bit out. “Your always be my responsibility. Hell even if we get back and you marry Pete, I’ll still be looking out for you. But out here, doubly so. Damn it Sam, I worry when you go to take a piss out here that somethings going to drag you away… or bite my pecker off.” He added grimly, half amused, half serious.  
“But that doesn’t mean your tied down to me either.” He added, as if sensing that was the crux of the issue and she didn’t think she was imagining the roughness that seemed to take over his voice. “You want to be with someone out here, take off, that’s your business. Hell, I can’t say I’ll like it, or even be particularly polite about it, but it’s your decision. Always was.”

Sam nodded. “Just like with Pete.” She watched his fist tighten on the stem of the bottle, his shoulders dropping slightly as tension seemed to prickle through him. “Tell me what you really think of him?” She hesitated. “Thought.” She put it in the past tense, because well, it was starting to feel a little that way out here.

Jack seemed to tense his jaw and took another swig of the bottle. “I think he’s fine.” He replied keeping the current tense, a non-to-subtle jab. “Nice normal, safe, dependable. Bit of a stalker but you know, it’s you, so that tends to happen.” He replied and she grimaced Daniel had a bee in his bonnet about that too from their initial meeting when he’d apparently followed her and run some background checks trying to find out what she was keeping from him. Just how classified her work really was.

“But?” she pressed, sensing there was one.

“No.” Jack bit out suddenly, sounding irritated.

“No?” Sam replied. 

Jack turned and stared darkly at her. “You want to justify your relationship with him, you go do that. I’m not being dragged into it.” He snapped with more than a hint of anger and irritation.

“I don’t need to justify it!” Sam barked out, feeling like he’d slapped her and not sure why, something had just tipped him over the edge and she honestly didn’t know what it was. “Why are you being like this?”

He continued to stare at her. “You don’t get it, do you?” he pressed his lips into a thin line and swiped his thumb over them suddenly as if removing a bad taste. “I suspected you weren’t trying to be cruel when you handed me that damn ring of his. But for such a smart bloody woman you really can be dense.”

Sam recoiled. “What?” She hissed. “You said you were happy for me, I came to you as a friend, as someone I trusted, I wanted your honest bloody opinion Jack about whether or not I was making the right decision.” She replied, feeling slightly thrown by him. “Hell Jack, there were times over the years where I honestly doubted whether you even valued me on your team let alone as a friend.”

Jack was quite still. “Okay, that’s fair, I think there were times that I resented you for a little while. And I hated myself more.” He admitted. “But you just made everything so bloody difficult.” 

Sam blinked. “I don’t… I don’t understand?” she whispered, horrified by his confession which confirmed her darkest fears, she’d always thought it was just paranoia. 

His eyes met hers and she saw pain in them. Pain and desire laid bare. And she got it. “You tried to push me away.” She realised uneasily, but a part of her had always known that too, even as she’d fought to accept it. When he was being a particular ass to her she’d known why, deep down. Just like she’d known that the uncomfortable silences that had only lengthened between them of late were filled with the unspoken truth of the attraction that had bubbled away between them for a long time.

“I gave up on you Jack.” Sam told him finally. “After Prometheus, when I almost died, I banged my head and I kept seeing things. Hallucinations, I guess. I realised I was holding onto you, because you were the safe bet, someone I could give my heart to and not really risk it. We’d never be together, so I’d never get hurt. I could pause that part of my life.”

He looked away, down at his label again. Intent on it as he peeled back the label half way. “I gave up way before that.” He replied. “When you told me we could leave it in the room, I was relieved. We’d cleared the air you know. I could voice it and move on.”

Sam frowned staring at him. “But you didn’t?” She acknowledged quietly and he shook his head. She knew how he’d looked at her the other week, before they’d left Sanctuary. His desperate almost visceral response to her teased flirting.

“Oh, believe me I gave up on the idea of us being together. But my feelings didn’t just stay in that room.” He muttered. “They got worse. Stronger.” He shrugged. “I’d die for you Sam.” He admitted and she held her breath feeling shaky.

“You’d die for any of the people at the SGC.” She pointed out.

“True.” Jack admitted. “But there’s not many I’d live for. And literally no one else, I’d take a damn snake for.” Sam flinched, at the venom in his voice and the reminder that she had been the reason he’d accepted Kanan into his head… the reason he’d suffered at Ba’als hands for so long.

“Jack, I’m sorry about that, I’ve apologised so many times… if I could have taken your place, stopped it. You know I’d have done it.” She swore, leaning forwards, inching closer to him, her hand hovering too terrified to touch him when she could see the dangerous anger swirling around him. The darkness that the time evoked, even now. 

Jack shook his head. “I don’t want that. I never wanted that. In fact, that was my nightmare, still is, that Ba’al had taken you not me. That he’d drag you in and use you to break me.” His black eyes seemed to burn into her soul. “Because it would have broken me,” he swore.  
“I’d have told him anything he’d damn well wanted if he touched so much as a fucking hair on your head.” He fisted his own hair in his hand, as if he was punishing himself.  
“You should hate me you know.” He admitted and Sam stared, a feeling like a knot forming in her chest, she knew where he was going with this. She’d had the same fears. 

“Jack no…” she tried and he slapped the hand away that she tried to reach for his arm.

“Don’t.” he snarled, staring her down. The darkness almost complete now, just the dim glow of the campfire behind them casting his face into shadow and making his eyes glow like coals. “I knowingly endangered you and the rest of the team for years Carter. Hell the whole planet, because if it came down to it… right down to it.” He jabbed his finger into the roof as though he wanted to put his whole fist through it. “I’d have put you before pretty much anything.”

Sam shook her head. “No. You didn’t, there were a dozen instances I can think of when you didn’t do that.” She tried to convince him, this was the General Jack O’Neill she knew, broken by the idea that his feelings had somehow compromised them and put everyone at risk.

He shook his head. “Yeah. And you know what Sam. I’d have blinked. I was playing chicken with the Universe, pretending I was willing to risk you. But I’d have blinked right at that last minute and done whatever it took to save you.” He looked away.  
“You should hate me you know, I’ve abused my position as CO for too long. I should never have put you in that damn position.” He growled, clearly this had been something he’d thought for a long time, years even, if the bitter self-recrimination was anything to go by.

“Your too hard on yourself.” She replied quietly.

“Really.” He snarled. “I thought about murdering Pete.”

Sam blinked. Not quite sure if he was being serious or not. His unpleasant look and the way he couldn’t hold her gaze made her think that it was possible he wasn’t joking. She wasn’t sure what to say to that. She knew there was a darkness in Jack, she’d read his file (what wasn’t redacted even to her clearance level) when she joined his team, she was under no illusions as to the man she’d followed willingly the good and the bad.

“Right after you showed me that damn ring.” He continued scrubbing his hand through his hair in that nervous gesture of his and she wondered if he’d been waiting to confess since then.  
“I passed by your house twice that night in my truck. You were still working, it was just him in there. I thought about going in, just talking to him you know. Giving him the ‘warning’ speech about not hurting you like a CO might. I even stopped, pulled right up outside.” He confessed and she tried not to shiver at the thought of him doing that, of going inside.  
“I realised as I was tucking my gun into my waistband, that if I went in there, I might kill him.” Jack added darkly. “And you’d hate me.” He didn’t even pretend that Pete’s death would have weighed heavy on him, just what she’d think of him.  
“So, I got back in my fucking truck and drove away.” He reached out and Sam let him take her hand, feeling his fingers as they slipped into hers, linking them. He stared at their joined hands a moment, his thumb brushing hers as though his confession was tender as opposed to slightly terrifying in its intensity. He wouldn’t have killed Pete, she was certain of that, Jack O’Neill was a good man that sometimes was asked to terrible things. But that didn’t make him terrible. He might have scared the piss out of Pete though.  
“You want my opinion. He didn’t deserve you and wasn’t good enough by half, but then no one is.” He added with a shrug. “Not me… but definitely not him.” He told her firmly, squeezing her fingers. “But I wanted you to be happy. And he made you happy, because god knows I couldn’t.”

His confession lay heavily between them and in her heart. She felt guilt and anger rolling around inside of her for the mess she’d made and was still making. This was why she’d tried to protect herself from complications like this, from the damage love could do.  
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, not with him.” She offered finally in way of apology. “I just, wanted a life. I thought he was what I wanted.”

“What do you mean you thought he was?” Jack asked, suddenly alert to perhaps her change of heart.

Sam looked down at their joined hands. They’d been here a month together, that was all, and she was sat here holding another man’s hand. The only other man she’d ever considered. Which made the idea of marrying Pete seemed painfully naïve, and it wasn’t the first time she’d had that thought.  
“I’ve been, well I had been, thinking about giving the ring back.” She inhaled shakily she’d not spoken about that to anyone, not Janet, not Cassie and definitely not herself.  
“Everything was just moving so fast, he was talking about buying a house, and a dog, kids… it was like my whole life was being mapped out. Hell even the wedding arrangements I felt like I was just a spectator being dragged along on this Stepford Wife ride and I didn’t know how to get off.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, you at the florists instead of in the lab was an odd idea.” He broke the tension and she chuckled. Smirking as she dropped his hand. He let her, trailing his fingers against her wrist for a moment, as though he didn’t really want to relinquish the contact. 

“I’m not sure I’d have married him, even if we hadn’t got stuck here.” She admitted to herself aloud for the first time and felt relief wash over her for a moment, like a weight lifting at finally admitting that to herself and to him.

Jack nodded, his expression closed though. “Probably a good thing I didn’t shoot him then.” He quipped and she shook her head in mild exasperation, turning back to her bottle of rum and deciding that maybe talking to Jack about their ‘feelings’ wasn’t the worst idea in the world, even if it was bloody painful.

“I’m not good at feelings Sam.” He shrugged apologising almost for that, but once more his thoughts completely in sync with hers. “But you should know, that I’m a selfish bastard. Because right now, I’m okay with being stuck here. But you left behind a lot, friends, family, fiancé.” He took a swig of whiskey.  
“Me though, I bought what I cared about most with me.” He gave her a pointed look that left her no doubt as to what he was referring then he stood getting to his feet and for a moment she wondered if he was going to simply walk away leaving her stunned with that declaration. Instead he turned back, giving her one last wary look.

“I don’t know if we’re going home again Sam. And if so how long that might take, but as far as I’m concerned there’s a good chance we’re in this for the long haul, so I’m going to live like that’s the case.” He looked down at her, the heat in his stare palpable.  
“I lost you to another man once, because I wasn’t allowed to fight for you. I won’t repeat that mistake.” He swore, his tone as serious and determined as she’d ever heard it. Usually that was the voice he chose when they were about to stand down a fleet of enemies against unsurmountable odds. It normally filled her with hope, she wasn’t entirely certain what it filled her with right now. This thing between them had always been nebulous, unspoken, this was anything but that. This was a declaration.

But he was striding away from her before she could respond, slipping back off the roof and disappearing from her line of sight as she sat there stunned. He’d just told her he was going to fight for her, for them, but to what… win her heart? In which case she thought he might have missed the part where it had always been his. 

Except that all seemed to hinge on the idea that they weren’t getting out of here. That didn’t sit well and she couldn’t let herself think that, or she’d crumble. He was right, she was still holding on to back home and until she let it go, she wouldn’t be able to just embrace here… or the possibility of their being a them. 

Which was perhaps why, two weeks almost to the day that they’d invited this group into Sanctuary she went looking for Mama Murphy on purpose. If she wanted to know the future, and the chances of getting home then she needed to speak to someone who might know. So she had no choice but to bite the bullet and dodge Preston as she made her way to the Old Woman she’d been avoiding since she got here. She wasn’t hard to find, she was sat in the middle of the damn town in the most shored up house, right in the armchair that Jack had apparently helped reclaim for her. He'd fixed the legs and it seemed to be working fine for the 'old bones' so he’d said. Sam wasn't even sure the woman was all that old, or if it was just a combination of hard living and hard chems that had given her the shrunken withered appearance. Sam crouched down next to her and slipped her the box of mentats, as promised.

“You win.” Sam muttered as the old woman smirked and took them from her. “Come back after dark, out there by the old park benches, you and I can have a little chat and explore the mystic realms together.” Mama Murphy instructed with an almost enigmatic smile.

So, Sam found herself sat at an old park bench, absently playing with the rotting wood and staring out at the mostly dried up stream just at the edge of the town. Considering that if she managed to get the water supply sorted (without electrifying the whole damn stream), she could consider Jack's frankly ridiculous request that she try and build something 'offensive' for defence. Something out of metal and spitting bullets. She'd thought it was just one of his offhand remarks, until he'd come back from wandering out with Preston yesterday with what looked like the remains of a turret gun and dumped them almost in her lap.  
“That enough raw materials for yah?” he smirked and she glanced up at him and then Preston. She'd be more worried about how much time the two of them spent together except that Jack's eyes were rarely far from her whenever she sought them out. He was just giving her space she decided. It seemed like they’d had several charged conversations in this place now and she seemed to keep pushing him away, or riling him up she realised with regret. It hadn't been the intention either time, but there was just so much between them for this to be easy, whatever she decided. And has Jack had so eloquently ‘for him’ at least, pointed out, she had more to lose.

“Oh don't be so hard on yourself dear.” Mama Murphy startled her and Sam jumped, her hand already on her gun as she quickly released it, seeing the old woman shuffling to join her as she eased onto the rickety bench with a sigh. “He's crazy about you and trust me I know crazy.”

Sam blinked, that she could believe. “I have no idea what your...” she started and Mama Murphy rolled her eyes and waved away her feigned protests. 

“And I'm sure I have no idea how it is you've got stardust in your hair.” she grinned that disturbing little smile of hers as she slowly picked away at her secrets. But okay, that was impressive as far as creepy insights went, she was good, just enough with a little of your own interpretation and she could get you thinking she knew everything about you.

“What do you see when you look at me then?” Sam pressed, crossing her arms, her entire expression saying, impress me.

Mama shrugged. “Some, I see a ring of stars, worlds ours and not.” She added and Sam's attention was immediately peaked by the 'ring of stars' again, in a certain light, she supposed that might be interpreted literally to mean stargate. Mama Murphy wagged a finger at her and extended her hand, Sam hesitated for a moment before letting her take hers. She turned it over tracing her palm and fixing those pale milky eyes on her.  
“I see fear, dead worlds and war, always war even in the stars.” She closed her eyes and shook the images away with a look dropping her hand. “I see eyes that glow like the sun you blew up because it had the misfortune of being in your way.” She sat back at looked at her again and Sam was still, shocked into silence as she forced herself back into the moment, swallowing darkly, it was a disturbing but not entirely inaccurate way of looking at her little claim to fame of blowing up an entire sun. And the eyes that glowed, that had to be the Goa'uld. 

“How do you see, I mean is it thoughts, feelings, images?” Sam asked, wanting to know even as she was mildly horrified by this gift. She'd seen the cost of acquiring such things before and Cassie... God the thought of Cassie shocked her, she might never see Cassie again. Or Janet, or her brother's kids... her Dad. Daniel, Teal'c. She bowed her head and tried not to let the feelings overwhelm her as they ran rampant for a moment.

“Doesn't matter how I see, just that I do. Ask me the question that means most and I might be able to point you at an answer.” She instructed, not unsympathetic but potentially unmoved by the sudden emotion she must have felt pouring out of Sam.

“You mentioned the ring of stars.” Sam asked finally the question that she needed most, an inkling of an idea beginning. She just needed to know if it was possible, if there was even hope.

“Ah yes. The shimmering doorway of water. I see that a lot when I look at you.” Mama Murphy smirked. “Ask me what I see when I look at your General… because he’s no husband of yours, is he, not for lack of wanting though is it.” she provoked.

Sam's mouth opened and closed and she looked away. Okay so Mama Murphy had more than a little power and it wasn't mere suggestion. She apparently had a lot packed inside that wizened old frame, she saw straight through her and Jack’s lies.

“It's none of my business what he see's.” Sam admitted sharply, perhaps too sharply because Mama Murphy cackled at her.

“Oh but it is.” Mama Murphy replied jabbing her in the chest with a gnarled cigarette stained finger, “Especially when it concerns you.”

Sam dropped her head. “I know what Jack wants from me.” She confessed quietly. There didn't seem much point being evasive with a psychic.

Mama Murphy scoffed, “Pah.” she muttered, “You don't know the half of it. If you did you'd be a lot more scared.” she tutted. “That man’s soul is a black and red stain, and his heart was carved out of stone, except when it beats for you. Deadly as a Deathclaw, but loyal like a junk yard dog that'd tear the arm off of anyone that just gets to looking at you for too long.”

Sam shuddered. “That's his past. Jack's a hero.” she added certain in that.

“Aye. A Bloodsoaked hero. General's always are.” Mama Murphy sighed, and reached out patting her hand once more. “But you’re the light that shines into the cracks of his soul.” she shivered and pulled back. “God help the one that tries to put that light out.”

Sam pushed her hand away. “I'm not dying here!” She snapped, angry now. She wouldn't let this bitter old crackhead of a woman try to scare her.

Mama Murphy's lip twisted. “Maybe, maybe not. But there's more ways to put a light out than death.” She added shrewdly. 

Sam glared at her. “The ring of stars. You know something about it or not, or are you just smoke and mirrors?” Mama Murphy gave her a piercing look despite the chems that were clearly soaking into her blood stream and baking her brain. 

“I know that if something is valuable... it’s good to have a backup.” She snarked.

Sam shot up out of her seat her eyes wide and mouth gaping that spark of an idea she was having shooting into her brain like an explosion. “Oh my God, Antarctica!” She covered her hand over her mouth... The Ancient's gate.

Mama Murphy sighed and popped another pill into her mouth, rolling it around with a look of ecstasy. Her job apparently done as she merely nodded at her serenely. “There ya go.”

“But it's, pointless.” Sam exclaimed, “I mean, there is literally no way of getting to it. I'd need a ship, or a sub or something.” She admitted, the flare of hope dimming quickly into defeat, because if the Ancient Gate still existed it was buried deep under the glaciers and so far they hadn’t even made it out of Boston. A trip like that would take years. Literally.

Mama Murphy opened one milky eye onto her. “What say you go take a peek... see what the Glowing Sea threw back.”

Sam covered her mouth with her hand and stared at that one-eyed look that saw more than anyone had any right too, as she felt something close to despair and hope rubbing conflictingly along her aching heart and Sam felt a sob tear free. “Thank you.” she managed through her tears.

“Ack now, no tears.” Mama Murphy snapped. “World's too hard for tears now and if we started we'd only drown in them.” She added more gently before shutting her eyes tight, “Besides it breaks his black heart.” She pointed sightlessly and Sam shot up noticing now that Jack was in the shadow of the house behind them. A cigarette in his lips, an old habit he'd taken back up since they'd found preserved cartons of them in the vault and a fancy gold flip lighter. Her breath caught at the sight of him there when she was feeling so raw.

“You two could be happy here you know. You've got all you need.” the old woman added astutely and Sam didn't take her eyes off Jack as he tossed the burnt-out cigarette away and slowly made his way towards them, hands in his pockets, unhurried.

“Except our lives.” Sam added.

And Mama Murphy barked out a laugh. “Your hearts beating ain't it, your brains still thinking stupid crap.” she snorted and Sam's mildly affronted look despite having not even seen it past her closed lids, “That's what counts for life around here... separates us from the Ghouls anyway. Lucky bastards got it right, brains all rotted away to mush, they don't much care whole worlds gone to crap.”

Sam took that in uneasily, they'd yet to meet a Ghoul but apparently it was one of the things that had torn Jun's son to shreds and left him a jabbering wreck. Preston had given them slightly more info, but it was Sturgess that had come up with the really interesting information, like how not all of them we're mindless. Some Ghouls retained their brains, just their bodies had rotted away. And they lived on and on, poor bastards, stuck that way since the blast. He even told them of an entire City run by Ghouls which she found mildly fascinating even if horrific. Her eyes blinked up to see that Jack had reached them without her notice as she'd become lost in thought. 

“Everything alright Carter?” He kept back a few paces, his equivalent of privacy.

“Fine Sir.” Sam managed on reflex in response to her surname from his mouth, swiping at her cheeks and the remaining tears. She winced at her accidental slip, but then, Mama Murphy already knew what she and Jack were, hadn't she called him the General? She suspected Preston did to, based on the salute she'd seen aimed Jack's way earlier today, something had obviously happened on their little field trip to find her the turret parts.

“Let's take a walk Sam.” Jack hit the Sam hard and she bit her lip, turning to give Mama Murphy another thank you, but the old woman was already lying on top of the picnic bench her arms out like a starfish with a drugged out smile as she stared blankly up into space. Disturbing but then who was she to judge, if she could see all the crap that existed in this Universe, maybe she'd be melting her brain cells too. 

Resigning herself to a chat with Jack, with him fully in concerned CO mode apparently, she fell into step beside him and he slowly led them away, up towards the back of the town.


	6. Sky Full Of Stars

Jack felt the distance between them keenly and he had only himself to blame as he walked step by step beside her. He longed to reach out and take her hand, pull her into his arms and hold her there like he used to every now and again when the moment allowed it, for him to comfort her. Bury his head in her neck and smell her skin, which even covered in grime and the stink of this fucked up world, was a darn site better than anything else here. But he didn't.

“You're not fine.” he told her plainly as he pulled them to a stop down by the ruins of the kids playground. He'd fixed the swings today and he watched her spot them with a small smile and cross to one, she'd know it was him of course, who else would even know what they were, or care enough to fix something so frivolous. Sturgess would call it a waste of good wood and steel. She eased herself into one gently, testing its strength before she settled and pushed off letting the movement rock her. He took a moment to just watch her, the soft glow of a street light up by the road she'd managed to hook up to the generator and miracle into working, bathing her in a red light and shadow but enough for him to see her.

“No, I'm not.” she admitted. “But neither are you.” she sighed and he acknowledged that, unnerved and grateful at how well she could read him. “This place, this Earth, it brings out the worst in everyone, just to stay alive.” She dropped her head.   
“I've done things here that I would never have even believed I could and its been what, a month?” she shook her head. “If we don't get out of here Jack, we're going to become like the rest of them, anything to survive... whatever the cost to our humanity.”

Jack took the swing beside her and gently pushed off, sitting sideways so he could see her. She glanced up and noted he’d placed the not-yet functional mostly in bits turret up on the old brick wall. Securing the area as best he could. He hadn’t doubted for a moment that pretty soon she’d be able to have that thing up and running again, but if anyone was looking it might act as a deterrent for now. He planned on getting a second turret once she’d fixed up this one to cover the bridge, a lot of these old buildings seem to have them particularly the military ones. Preston hadn't believed that anyone could fix up the wrecked turret after they'd been forced to blow it all to hell to get it down. But then he didn't know Carter.

He didn't need to even consider her question, he knew exactly how long they'd been here. “One month, four days and 9 hours.” He admitted precisely and he watched her take that in apparently she’d been a little out in her estimation, which she didn’t like the implications of. One month and they'd started to make a home her on a barren world, with not so much as sniff of an idea as to how to get the hell out of here. He hadn't pressured her, she did enough of that herself. If she thought of something she'd tell him. And he knew that it would be eating her up inside to not have anything. No plan, no hope. Nada. Just more of this Wasteland.

“Did you and Preston come to some sort of agreement?” She ventured and he grit his teeth, that had been a very long walk back from helping out a little farming town a few clicks North yesterday. “Yeah, he wants us to help him get his band of Minutemen back together.” he gave her the gist of that little conversation. But of course she was Carter and he underestimated her at his peril, damn he must be out of practice. They'd both been pulled in different directions this last two weeks with all the new people. They hadn't talked enough, he'd been relying on her just 'getting' him like she usually did.

“You mean he wants you to rebuild the Minutemen. General.” she replied and he gave her his thousand yard stare, damn her x-ray O'Neill eyes.

“We're a package deal Carter.” he replied quietly, the steel in his voice he hoped injecting some of the irritation he felt at how 'apart' they'd become and answer some of that nonsense she’d been spouting about going their separate ways, how she wasn’t his obligation. That particular part of their little rooftop conversation still incensed him. The fact that she just couldn’t seem to understand that if she wasn’t here, then he didn’t really have much interest in carrying on.

“Yes.” she admitted. “But you are the General, General. I'm the tech support.” She added and he opened his mouth dragged back from his inner rantings, only to shut it when she raised her hand, her lip bite stopping him more than anything else, he hadn't seen that little expression in a while and he wondered at it now.

“If you believe a word that jacked up Old Woman says... then we may have something, a shot maybe.” He stopped the swing and grabbed hers, slowing its movement.

“Tell me.” he insisted, towering down over her. He'd take his info wherever the hell he could get it these days and if it came out of the town crazy lady, so be it.

She looked away. “I'm an idiot Jack.”

He snorted out a laugh and stifled it at her sick look. “Oh, let me count the ways you are not.” he managed at a complete loss.

“This is parallel Earth Jack. An Earth that we've already established seemed pretty much identical to ours until shortly after the Second World War. Right?” she pushed him and he nodded.

“Okay, yeah. So?” he failed to see where she was going with this.

“I've been so focused on trying to get us off this planet, on finding ways to shift parallel dimensions that I never stopped to consider the obvious. We need a Stargate.”

He frowned. “Yeah we're fresh out of those.”

“Are we?” she pointed out and he felt something leaden form in his gut. “Carter... please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think your suggesting?”

“It could be there Sir. Under the ice. Just like on our Earth.” He reached out and grasped the hand that she was nervously picking apart the seam on her jacket with. Drawing her attention onto him.

“Sam, it's under a shit-tonne of ice at the bottom of the frigging world. We aren't getting to it, let alone down to it. Hell we don't even know what damage Antarctica suffered in the Nuclear War. If the oceans boiled, then it’s not even ice anymore which means it’s at the bottom of the goddamn ocean.”

She nodded. “I know. I know, which I think is why I’d never let it be more than a fleeting thought.” She sighed, “But... there's this.” she showed him her PibBoy and he glanced at the words 'Far Harbour' it was right at the edge of what Preston had told him was the Glowing Sea. Apparently this Minutemen Stronghold he wanted to reclaim was pretty close by, some sort of old castle.   
“You want to take a boat?” He asked, wondering if maybe this was going to be one of her insane but brilliant ideas, or one of those rare ones that he had to nip in the bud before it came to fruition.

“I want to find a submarine.” She corrected and he stared at her for a flat minute before he decided she wasn't joking.

“Baked out Ol' Mama tell you there was a sub floating out in Far Harbour?” He asked, wondering if he should throttle the old bag for filling her head with crap like this. No hope was better than a fool’s hope he reasoned.

“Maybe, I’m not so sure her gift is telling the future, more like she sees glimpses of your thoughts, maybe your past, puts it all together and makes a prediction.” She reasoned looking thoughtful, 

“Or tells you what you want to hear.” He pointed out, he’d met a few ‘fortune tellers’ in his time, he found they were just very good at reading people mostly. Although the old bat had been right about his son when she’d told him that he was haunted by the death of his child, and that he’d find no peace… not ever, except maybe in Sam’s arms. He wasn’t sure yet about that part, but he’d always suspected that if peace existed for him it had her face.

Sam though was still focused on her latest idea. “But it makes sense Jack, I mean think about it, Codsworth told us about the Chinese in this World trying to steal the pipelines in Alaska, about the marine warfare. It was the nuclear subs that launched the end of the world. Jack... they're might actually be one out there.” She almost begged him to believe in her little fantasy of a magic stargate at the bottom of the world. Crap, he wanted to, the thought of taking her home, getting her out of this place, getting them out. A hot bath and a warm meal. A cold beer. Her in one of her little sun dresses rather than head to toe combat gear… although, he still thought fondly of that blue vault suit number she only tended to wear to bed now.

He grimaced. Fantasy was dangerous he reasoned. 

But maybe.... They had after all found what Preston informed him was a Chinese Officers Sword on some raider who had come from the Glowing sea to the East, apparently this whole place was littered with fishing inlets and harbours. He scrubbed his new scruffy beard with his hand and wondered if she'd consider helping him shave it again. He'd never been good at the blade trick without a mirror, but she’d done it for him once or twice off world for him when they'd had to bed down for a while longer than expected. Or he could pop down to the vault again, they’d been doing that on and off once a week to shower. Sturgess had practically gleamed when he’d come out, Jack wasn’t sure the man had ever bathed. His skin was literally a different colour than the grease that usually caked it when he’d emerged.

“Preston wants me to go South East with him, clear to the other side of the coast.” He told her bringing his focus back to the conversation, he’d not agreed, not yet, but he was considering.   
“Apparently there's this old castle there, former Minutemen HQ. He reckons we can  
get support, rally the entire lot of them back together from there. Its defensible, got all the security in place. Water purifiers and even a damn oil rig hooked up.” He admitted and stood from the swing and stepped closer to her, reaching out for her wrist and the PipBoy and bringing up the map, he jabbed his thumb on the spot, pleased when some sort of marker appeared.   
“That's not far from that harbour.” He added. “We got some work to do in the surrounding area first, build up our network, help the communities, before anyone will think of joining us out there. But if we go, I say maybe we give both a shot.” Sam nodded and pulled her wrist back, powering the device down. 

She stilled her swing, her hands in her lap as she sat there, looking like the innocent he knew she wasn't, but he still felt the urge to protect her as more than just her teammate, and CO. 

“Jack, I understand the temptation, what your trying to do here, I really do, but we can't fight their war for them. The war's over. Everyone lost and there's no rebuilding back from this.” She admitted and a tear spilled out and ran over her cheek again. He reached out brushing the damn thing away. He hated seeing her cry, always had. 

“Sam.” he murmured, tilting her head up. The way her blue eyes shimmered, the pain he saw reflected there settled deep inside him and made him want to reach for her, press his mouth to hers and tell her that he was with her in this. He loved her realised quietly. This wasn’t just feelings, he’d known that as he’d stuffed them down inside of himself time and time again and they’d refused to stay. 

And like that his resolved snapped he wanted to show her how much he cared.

He bent his head and captured her mouth with his, feeling her startle slightly as he pressed his lips over her soft ones. He meant it to be gentle, a promise. But when her lips pressed back against his and her hand slid to the back of his head, he couldn’t help but deepen the kiss. He wanted more, he always wanted more of her, he was mildly worried that this desperate feeling would never leave him when it came to her. But he’d take whatever she would allow, for as long as she would allow it.

He remembered every time he’d kissed her, or at least a version of her, but there was one he treasured, the only one that had been ‘actually’ her, in full control of herself, but it lived only in his memory because he'd been too chicken shit to try it outside of a time loop. He’d never told her, assuming that she’d have kicked his ass. But he remembered the feel of holding her in his arms, of supporting her weight and feeling her surprise turn to something else in his arms. The touch of her tongue to his had fuelled a thousand fantasies. He’d never trusted himself or dared, to do it any other time than the one loop before he and T’ealc had decided would be the last, one way or the other. A one-time only shot, his last chance to know if she’d wanted him the same way, to feel her lips and pretend for a moment she was his to kiss, to know what it felt like. He’d honestly half expected her to slap him, or not respond at all. But she hadn’t, she’d kissed him back and the knowing had almost made it worse, even as he’d treasured it. Their perfect moment. But knowing what she tasted like, what she smelt like, knowing her weight and the press of her chest to his, the sound of her as he swallowed her gasp… it had been a torment and a treasure for the last four years entirely of his own making.

God the feeling hadn't changed he mused as his heart thudded dangerously in his chest as she kissed him back, her other hand rising to cup his cheek so he felt surrounded by her as her other hand threaded fingers through his hair. Kissing Carter on the swings he'd built... he could bank that one too if he had to. But as ever it wasn't enough, he wanted to feel her against him, to hold her close wrap his arms around her and carry on. But he knew it was too soon, this was too new and they were both a bit too broken for it to be that simple. He broke the kiss gently, pulling back and pressing a kiss to either cheek where she'd cried twice now tonight. For a woman that so rarely cried it meant something big was happening inside of her.

Her eyes opened slowly and she had her fingers pressed to her lips, wide watery eyes stared back up at him again. 

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, taking a step back when she didn’t speak. That was the second time he’d stolen a kiss he’d not been offered from his 2IC. But he’d felt her in that kiss, felt the same longing. “I just…” he shook his head, was there an excuse good enough? Did he even need one? Did he dare actually say those three little words out loud if she couldn’t, or wouldn’t accept them right now?  
“You’re were sad and you looked beautiful on those swings, I just… had to.” He managed inarticulately. He wanted to tell her how long he’d been desperate to kiss her, how it had made his chest ache seeing her there. He didn’t. But she smiled gently up at him, her fingers falling away from her lips.

“I’m not ready to give up on getting home yet Jack.” She whispered, her voice breaking over the words as she looked down at her legs as they dangled from the swing. But he heard the waiver in it, the way she was torn. He’d hoped after their conversation the other night where he’d lost his temper, but hopefully spelled out his intent, she would consider this a viable option. Even as she chased a way home.

“How is this, the you and me, abandoning the idea of getting home?” He asked genuinely confused and a little exasperated. Every other women he’d kissed in his life had been more than receptive to him, why was it the one woman he really wanted left him out in the cold.

“Because the only thing that ever stopped us was the rules. If we do this, then I’m as good as admitting that the rules are gone, that Pete and my responsibilities there gone… I can’t. I just, I need to hold onto the idea a little while longer.” She admitted looking more than a little sick at the thought, she was torn he realised but not enough and she’d gone and tangled all her emotions up together with the thought of home. Of hope. 

God damn it she’d made him the hopeless choice, which was all kinds of messed up.

He frowned and ran his hands through his hair. Fuck. He considered kissing her again. Putting her so called resolve to the test, pressing her against the nearest wall and seeing how strong that grip on her honour was, because his had snapped some time ago. But he didn’t, even as he clenched his fist and turned away, not able to look at her for fear he’d follow through. She was asking him to let her hold onto hope… at the expense of them. Damn it.

“Jack… please don’t shut me out, I’m not, rejecting you, I’ve never done that. But you and I…” She pleaded trailing off as if she didn’t want to use the well worn cliché.

“It’s complicated.” He bowed his head voicing what he knew she was going to say. Of course it was, how couldn’t it be, worse so now she’d gone and put conditions and mixed it all up with her feelings of home.

“Well I wasn’t going to say it, I know how you feel about cliché’s.” She replied gently a trace of a humourless smile on her lips when he turned back to look at her. The ache hadn’t gone and his fingers itched to reach out and touch her to slide into her golden hair again. 

He nodded. “I’ve waited 8 years…” he admitted with a shrug, ‘he could wait some more’. But even as he said it, he doubted his own resolve.   
“Look, you should know, that even if we get back, things won’t be the same between us. I’ll retire, or there’s always Washington if they won’t let me.” He admitted, “Hell we both know I’m not really cut out for paperwork, flying a desk was just another way to stay close to you and the guys, to feel a part of it you know.” She was staring at him when he dared to look up, her mouth open in an expression of grim realisation.   
“But I can’t be your CO Sam, not if I’m expected to make a decision worth a damn.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“You mean it, about giving him back the ring?” He didn’t even want to say the name of the guy that currently had the right to kiss her ‘just because’.

She didn’t look away from his scrutiny, her chin raising. “I meant it.” She admitted. “Being here… it turns out it’s not him I miss, the idea of him maybe, the fiancé back home giving a rats ass that I’m gone, but I don’t actually miss him. I think that says it all really.”

“I reckon it does.” He worked really hard not to let the feeling of elation and relief show on his face and curve his lips into a smile, she didn’t need to see him radiating smugness about that, even if he felt it.

“You know, when I came back from Edora…” he started and saw her wince, he knew this was a sore topic for her, but it was relevant so he pressed on. “I had to see a shrink. Something about processing the fact that I’d given up, started a life there.” She shifted uncomfortably and looked away.   
“Anyway, this shrink told me that everything I went through, right up to deciding to make the best of it… was like grieving. I’d grieved the loss of my whole damn life. Everyone and everything I’d never see again. First thing was denial. I waited, days at that damn crater, expecting some sort of miracle, digging pointlessly to free the gate. I mean even if I got it out what did I know about fixing it?” He shrugged. “Laira, she kept bringing me food and water. Just leaving it there. It was weeks before I even acknowledged their hospitality and let myself start making a plan as to how I was going to get by there.”

“Sir, you don’t need to explain.” She replied and he winced at the Sir. He strode forward and got right into her line of sight. 

“Don’t Sir me Sam.” He warned and she pursed her lips, the ‘not after you just kissed me back’ went unspoken but not unfelt. They were long beyond the chain of command now, he’d quite thoroughly cut the links of that in his mind and he wasn’t going back to it.   
“I mourned you, you know.” Jack replied, “Mourned the idea of you anyway.” He added, “It was still early days for us, I hadn’t realised just how bad I’d got it then, not until I was trapped there and I realised I’d never see you again.” He scuffed his boot. He hated talking, but this needed to be said, it had needed to be said years ago, but he’d never felt able to. It was surprising how liberating being stranded could be.   
“I made the best of it Sam. I decided that it might be next week, or a year, or never. But after a month I realised it didn’t matter, I couldn’t live my life on pause.”

Sam was grinding her teeth, he crouched down into her eyeline, his knees be damned and reached for her hand. She moved it away, but he chased, catching her wrist and wrapping his fingers around it. “I didn’t expect you to rewrite the laws of physics to get me home.” She was staring at him hard now, her eyes boring into him with intensity, the pain of this old hurt still very real.

“You should have.” She told him finally, accusingly. He knew she’d felt betrayed, as though he’d doubted both her abilities and her feelings for him, he hadn’t realised she still felt that way, but the anger brimming in her now he realised they probably should have had this chat a while back.

“I know that now.” He added. “But back then I felt like a dirty old lech lusting after his incredibly hot, insanely capable, genius 2IC.” He shrugged. “You weren’t supposed to want me back, because frankly, that’s nuts Sam.” He admitted still barely believing it and he’d just been kissing her.   
“And I was mad, mad and a bit relieved… I mean, early retirement on a nice little farm, nice woman who wanted to keep me company. It seemed a better notion than spending my days toiling in the dirt growing old and bitter.” He turned her hand over and bought her knuckles up to his lips, pressing them against his cheek, because he needed the contact. It was a quirk about him his ex-wife had pointed out early on, about his constant need to touch, and reassure himself almost of the solidity of the people in his life. Something he’d had to deny himself with Sam for so long that the impulse now was almost overwhelming, it should have felt foreign, wrong, but it felt so damn right, her hand in his, her skin against his.  
“I didn’t know I had someone waiting. But I guess I underestimated a lot of things back then.” He confessed trying not to be self-pitying.

“If you’d known… would it have made a difference?” She asked quietly.

“Other than making it a lot worse.” He frowned, “I don’t know. I’d like to think I’d have waited forever.” 

She shuddered, fighting a sob and pulled her hand back from him, wiping her eyes. “Why are you telling me this?” She asked suddenly, sounding a bit annoyed again.

He shrugged. “I’ve been where you are. It sucks. But you move past it, you just decide to live. I’m just letting you know that one way or another, the life we had is gone, we should make the best of this one, even if it’s only for a few months or years even. Because we can’t know. And this time, there’s no Sam on the other end of that wormhole for either of us, rewriting the laws of space and time to get us back. We’re both stood right here.”

She did sob this time and large wet tears rolled down her cheeks, he sighed and grasped her face again, smoothing her cheeks with his thumbs. 

“How is it you can be such an inarticulate ass half the time and then suddenly come out with stuff like that.” She snapped at him, getting off the swing and striding past and away from him, she walked to the bench and doubled over her hand to her mouth in a near silent moan, the pain and loss he knew she was feeling like a physical blow sometimes; he ached to just hold her, take her in his arms and make it go away. But he was half the problem here.

He really didn’t want to make her cry. “Look, I'm here Sam and I'm not going anywhere.” He promised.

She turned and stared at him and he could see anger warring with despair in her face. “When did you give up here?” She accused, “Or is that your standard MO, 1 month in, just flush your life away like it doesn’t matter?”

He could feel his anger rising to meet hers and he tried to temper it, knowing her grief. “Damn it Carter I pretty much gave up the minute I saw that gate go down the hole and you didn't instantly spout ten other ways to solve the damn problem, but the nail in the coffin was the very next day when we find out its a parallel world and there’s no ship coming.” He shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn't reach for her, because she might just throttle him.   
“Although I also thought we’d be dead by now of radiation poisoning or starvation, so we’ve got that going for us.” He added a little morbidly, because it was damn well true.

She rolled her eyes and he turned in a tight circle, running his hands through his hair and debating how to salvage this.

“Look you need time. I get that.” He acknowledged. “For me, it was easier from bitter experience, I know what I need and what I want in life and I didn’t lose everything.” He told her again the only way he could, that he’d bought the best thing in my life with him. Just like he’d told her on the roof a few days ago. He didn’t know if she’d believed him then, but the look of surprise and resignation he saw on her face, he suspected she did now.

He was a fairly open book when it came to her he thought, or he had certainly tried to be in these last two excruciating conversations they’d had here like this. But she was trembling and with one last look at him she stalked off in the opposite direction of the fire. It irked him, but he knew she wouldn’t be stupid, she’d go cool off on a perimeter check, she still had a gun after all, then she’d come back bed down and probably ignore him until she’d sorted out whatever the hell was in her head in response. 

That was twice now he’d all but declared ‘I love you’ damn it, even if he hadn’t managed to actually ‘say’ it. Putting her on the spot with his ridiculous feelings. He didn’t blame her for wanting a little distance. The thought of going down to the water’s edge and drinking some whiskey appealed, but instead his feet took him back up to the homestead and he found himself playing basketball in the hoop they’d found and fixed up to the side of one of the houses on a cleared concrete lot. The kickball was harder, but Marcie had actually proven useful and stitched them a leather ball, which they’d filled full of gas. He was mildly concerned by ‘which’ gas, so he hadn’t asked and it hadn’t exploded so there was that. Sam returned an hour later and went to her workbench to whack some doo-hikey into submission before she called it a night. She glanced over at him and then ducked her head disappearing inside. 

He got the impression she’d want some distance from him tonight, so he decided to sleep up on the roof in the lookout shelter, surmising that she might not want to see him, and he wasn't sure he could take the snores of the rest of the group. He'd managed to wangle Sturgess into helping him build a little terrace up on top the last few days, a guard post he'd called it but mostly it was a little bit of his cabin back home, some shelter, where he could lie on his back and look at the stars without wondering if something was going to bite his ass off. The night sky was clear for once and he stared up at the stars that didn't look quite the same. It had taken him a while to realise what the issue was; some were missing, others looked dimmer somehow, there were others were there hadn’t been before. He held his hand up measuring with his thumb and index finger and sighing. The Big Dipper was wrong and so was the moon, one too many impact craters he suspected and something biblical had hit the upper left side of it leaving it misshapen there. If Sam was here she’d probably have been able to explain it as some parallel world shenanigans, but it was disconcerting to see so familiar a landmark so differently scarred. Even on alien worlds in the Milky Way he’d begun to spot patterns, something familiar overhead. But this… it was like this whole Universe was turned on its head and lay up there, broken or dying. ‘Apocalypse Universe’ he called it quietly to himself.

“Not in Kansas anymore Toto.” He said aloud and gave a silent salute to the sky before tucking his blanket around him and thanking the fates that kept doing shit like this to him, that at least it was warm here and that whiskey and cigarettes were still a thing.

\---*---

He spent several days giving Sam a wide birth. Mostly out of respect for her clear need for space, she wasn’t exactly free to get away from him, and he didn’t want to impose. He had sort of laid it on a little thick the last few times they’d spoken. Telling her exactly how he wanted this to go down between them, telling her to give up on a rescue and simply shack up with him for the foreseeable. No matter what he was thinking, he doubted Sam would ever give in quite so easily. He’d have preferred it if she hadn’t linked those two ideas in her mind, the idea of them being together meaning that she’d somehow abandoned hope of home. But he guessed that’s what you got for wrapping your relationship and emotions up in the red tape of duty and rules for the last 8 years. Unsticking that was always going to be messy.

She even went back to Mama Murphy, he knew because he saw her striding away with a face like thunder as the old bag made a starfish in the dusty dirt, a pack of grape mentats this time in her hand. God knows what she’d told her, but he rarely came out of a conversation with the nutjob feeling better.

Mostly he stuck to farming whilst he avoided Sam and pretty much everyone else. Preston seemed to have picked up on their mood and had offered to take him out to start spreading the good word, there was a farmstead just South apparently, place called Abernathy’s that could do with some assistance according to the short-wave radio they’d set up. Seemed like once upon a time they’d been part of the Minutemen militia, so Preston felt obligated to render aid… or something else equally noble. Jack had grabbed his gun and his cap and set off. He’d let Preston tell Sam and the others where they were heading, and that they’d be gone for a couple of days. 

He wasn’t too worried about leaving her alone, Sam was a good shot, they had a turret and the mine fields she’d set up all along the perimeter with the stash that Sturgess found buried in some guys basement out back. Plus Sturgess and Jun were armed. There had also been no sign of anyone approaching Sanctuary in the months and a half almost now that they’d been there, add to that Codsworth’s tracking sensors, his blowtorch of death and his rather heavy duty frame and Jack suspected it was he and Preston that would have more to worry about.

He glanced back as they headed out, Sam was stood her gun strapped across her chest, watching him, he gave her a lazy salute. “Keep the lights on for us will yah.” He called back and when he got no reply trudged on. Hopefully a couple of days actually ‘apart’ would help her to work through whatever was in her head holding her back. He didn’t want it to feel like he was punishing her but he had to occasionally do what was right for him and he needed just a day where he didn’t wake up to her face, taunting him with her nearness and the sheer apparently unscalable wall between them.

Of course, he should have known there was no such thing as a milk run out in the Wastes; when people call for help, they really mean it out here! He was perched on top of a barn house, ducking as bullets pinged over his head. Having pot-shots taken at him in the dark by a bunch of damn robots was not his idea of fun. Fortunately, they had loud gears and light up power supplies and he could track well enough to down most of them. One with a really unpleasant looking prong managed to get him a good slash across his arm before he’d discharged pretty much an entire fusion cell from the fancy energy rifle he’d picked up off a raider they’d fought off along the way here. It seemed to do the trick. 

The Abernathy’s were good folk, grateful if surprised that anyone had come to help them, which had made Jack feel somewhat better about the minor injury on their behalf. The wife Connie seemed to be a born salesman but the husband Blake was a bit more cautious but they’d taken the idea of Preston getting the Minutemen band wagon back together pretty well and were willing to lend a gun or two if needed. If they could help out with a little problem (the actual problem they’d called about) the robot attack was merely coincidence apparently. Jack had given Preston a look at the mention of the job, apparently one of the two daughters had gotten kidnapped by a bunch of raiders. The family didn’t seem to have much hope that she’d be found alive, but they wanted to be sure, that and the retrieval of a locket. Jack had frowned at the idea of risking his life for a damn locket, but as Preston had pointed out, the farm had what they needed to support Sanctuary and its sudden population. Namely food and supplies. 

Which was to say that this really was a farm, and it had a shit tonne of ‘Tatos’ to trade and some tips on how to grow them that he’d been way to interested in. They seemed to be more like a cross between a tomato and a potato than anything he recognised, they grew on vines at any rate. But they tasted damn good in a stew he noted as he devoured the last of his bowl that evening. In fact it was probably the best thing he’d eaten since being here and he resolved to get Sam out here to try it, or barter for the recipe so he could recreate it. 

There was even a cow like thing with two heads out back at a water trough that they called a Brahmin with the frankly ridiculous name of Clarabell. Seemed to function the same as a regular cow though providing fresh milk… which meant cheese… He traded the sweet automatic 10mm he’d found for the cheese and a bottle of wine and couldn’t resist a nibble, closing his eyes in ecstasy. He didn’t care if it had come from the udders of a mutated cow with two heads. It was creamy goodness.

It was the food and Preston’s words, but mostly the food that had convinced him to run their little errand, along with a flash of pity for the family which had lost a daughter. He supposed there was the snowballs chance she might still be alive…

“We scratch their back, they scratch ours.” Preston had pointed out over the stew, “It’s the only way we get by.” He reasoned and Jack couldn’t argue with that logic.

“We said two days.” He reminded, he’d been happy leaving Sam alone for that, but anything longer and he was going to start getting twitchy.

Preston shrugged, seemingly knowing his head and heart was back with Sam. “Then let’s make it fast.” He replied. “I’ve seen you shoot. It doesn’t sound like this group are all that big or well armed.” 

“Fine.” Jack grumbled. “But if I die, you can tell Sam, she’d bloody kill me twice.” Preston had merely smirked at that and given him a lazy hat tip.

They’d decided to head out tomorrow at first light, taking advantage of the warmth and shelter for the night. He gratefully accepted the camp bed rather than a bed roll thinking that his back was going to thank him no end, as he pulled off his shirt and examined the slash across his bicep. He tossed some vodka on it that the youngest daughter, Lucy offered with a wince of sympathy. 

“Want me to patch that up for you?” She asked and Jack nodded, he wasn’t much of a medic and not stupid enough to turn down the assist.

“Sure, anything would help, I’d rather it didn’t drop off from gangrene at some point down the line.” He quipped and she frowned. He was starting to suspect that they just didn’t get infections in this world, that their medication was just better than that. Certainly, he’d never seen anyone worried about sterilising anything. Unless there was no bacteria… now that was a thought, but not one he cared to chase, but he supposed it was possible. He’d have to ask Carter, she’d probably tell him that it would be an impossibility, that bacteria was a necessary part of the life cycle of the Earth yadayada. 

Lucy was quick and efficient, she wiped it clean, applied some ointment and added four stitches all whilst she told him a little bit about her sister Mary. They didn’t seem to have gotten along too well, but she still wanted her avenged, which he thought was only natural, he noted she clearly didn’t expect them to find her alive. As she talked his mind wandered he honestly couldn’t imagine bringing up a family out here, or anywhere in this world if he was honest. His own son hadn’t survived the relative safety of his Earth, there was no such thing as gun cabinets out here other than a padlocked safe and he’d yet to find a safe big enough for his P90. He shuddered at both the thought and the memory Charlie always evoked, he pulled back at Lucy’s tug on the thread and he winced slightly feeling the torn flesh give. Perhaps he’d been distracted in his thoughts because he hadn’t noticed when her touch went from being professional to slightly more familiar, her hand trailing up across his shoulder as she stood over him.

He was mildly shocked to find her barely 18-year-old eyes batting down at him, her youthful body just that little too close as she caressed his arm. “You could stay, if you liked, after you get back?” She offered and he didn’t think she meant to just help around the farm as her fingers stroked his bicep tracing the wound.

Jack paused, trying to think of something polite to say to her clear offer, as her hand slid to his bare chest and across his dusting of hair and he leant back out of her touch, capturing her hand and holding it firm. Suddenly he knew exactly how Sam felt when she was propositioned by some alien. It was damn creepy, if a little flattering.   
“I have someone waiting for me.” He replied, at a complete loss as to what else to say to stop her advances.

She smirked not deterred in the least as she slid onto his lap straddling him and Jack froze, they were up on the second floor but her parents were just below and he suspected if they caught him like this he wouldn’t be given the chance to explain the situation, he’d just get a shotgun to his face. 

“So?” Lucy purred, leaning into him. “Surely you’ve got enough oil in your motor to keep us both warm at night?”

Jack coughed, embarrassed and ever so slightly aroused as he gripped her by her hips and lifted her bodily off his lap and stood, taking a step away from her.

“My wife’s the jealous, possessive sort. She’d shoot you, and me.” Jack replied his hands up as non-threatening but firm as possible, because that was no damn word of a lie. Except the wife part, but it was the first time he’d had to use that excuse to protect himself from unwanted advances, which was refreshing.

“Oh.” Lucy looked peeved at that. “You sure I can’t tempt you into a night?” she murmured not giving up as she started running her hands up her own chest and giving him the come to bed eyes he vaguely recalled from his youth. Fuck. He wasn’t even the slightest bit tempted, which was worrying in more ways than one, because she was attractive in a slightly unwashed, barely legal, farm girl type of way. She even had the short bob cut going for her and some very nice legs which were always his weakness.

“Your what… 16, 17?” She grinned, “I am waaaay too old for you.” Jack admitted having judged himself a good 20 years older than her damn father he was probably old enough to be her granddaddy out here where they seemed to have kids young. “I’m flattered though, that you’d you know, want to… with me.”

Her eyes raked over him, and he felt like a piece of meat as he dived for his shirt and hastily redressed, hating that Sam might have had a point about both of them being too pretty. They certainly seemed to have a healthier skin tone and degree of muscle than most the poor saps they met out in the Wastes.

“Honey I don’t care how old you are, damn you look good enough to eat.” She murmured her eyes still on him, running her tongue over her lips, her eyes narrowed as she seemed to calculate just what it would take to get him on his back.

“Okay.” He rubbed his hands together, “You know what, I’m… gonna go, deal with that sister problem of yours right now. No time like the present.” He hurried past the hormone crazed teenager and down the stairs, all but dragging Preston up out of his seat.   
“Got to go, got to go.” He muttered. “Night’s a wasting, Raiders won’t expect an attack at night, better now under cover of darkness.” He justified, Preston shot him a look and noted Lucy coming down the stairs, her arms crossed her eyes most assuredly on his ass.

“Your running from that?” Preston hissed at him in clear amusement as his predicament and confusion.

Jack gave him a look. “I can kill men with my bear hands… and I’m terrified right now of that little problem. So yes, we’re leaving.” He snarked, grabbing his gun and gear and bidding them a hasty good bye.

“I did not have you pegged for a lady’s man O’Neill!” Preston chuckled as they strode away from the farmstead.

“That wasn’t a lady, that was a teenager trying to hump my damn leg.” He muttered. “For crying out loud, I’m old enough to be her grandfather.” He growled half embarrassed.

Preston just grinned ruefully “You’re a good-looking man Jack, you and Sam. Life’s harder these days, guess what they say is true, they don’t make them like they used to.” He was laughing at him now and Jack turned and glowered at him, jabbing a finger at him to emphasise his point.

“If you tell me you fancy a piece of my ass too Preston, I’m going to stick my rifle up yours.” He warned and Preston just chuckled with his hands up in defeat, his own pock marked dark skin hidden in shadows, but Jack took his point, not especially pleased by it.

With Jack striding furiously it didn’t take them long to reach the camp holed up at the Satellite array. He had a night vision scope on his P90 which made it almost too easy. A few quick kills later they were striding into the mostly abandoned place, taking out a few stragglers that tried to take pot shots. Then he had the lovely task of rooting through pockets until he found the so called ‘leader’ that had the locket. They also found the remains of what had to be the poor Abernathy girl, Mary in a shallow ditch. She’d been shot mercifully in the back, probably trying to flee. There were worse fates out here than a quick clean through and through, so there was that Jack considered as he and Preston buried her properly and placed a gravestone so the family could come out if they wanted. They’d have tried to get her body back, but as Preston pointed out, leaving decaying bodies in your back yard was a quick way to get dead in the Wastes. They’d made it back to the farmstead as the first rays of morning light were coming. Jack had stayed back and let Preston handle it, Lucy had been stood on top of the farmhouse, she gave him a sultry little wave and kiss and he’d returned a lazy salute.

Turns out wasn’t such a bad haul. They had some crops to plant in their soon to be own farmstead, tips on how to grow them along with some ‘miracle soil’ and a solid neighbour willing to come to their aid in turn. 

Jack clapped his hand on Preston’s shoulder and they walked companionably. “Not a bad gig.” He’d admitted.

Preston nodded. “You given some more thought to helping out the Minutemen? We sorely need someone to lead, you know what I think, you’re already a General… be ours. There are dozens of places like that farm with good solid people, willing to work a hard day for their living and have your back when the raiders come calling.” Preston tried the ol’ recruitment speech again.

“I’ll admit, helping out today felt pretty darn good.” He admitted. “But you don’t need me, you’re already a leader.” He argued, knowing even as he said it that Preston had no desire to lead.

Preston shook his head. “Not like you.” He sighed, “Jack, you have a plan of attack before I’ve even finished scoping out the area. And they’ve been pretty much bang on with strategy, quick, efficient, effective.” Preston matched their strides.   
“I can’t do what you do, you saw how those farmers responded to you, I show up they get all shifty, but you, you have a way about you that just puts people at ease… until you’re in combat, then you stare at them and man I’ve seen eyes like yours before but they weren’t in anything human.” He admitted with a shudder. 

Jack grimaced. He couldn’t argue that, he could be damn cold and ruthless in a fight if needed, he’d been trained that way mostly, the rest was just innate, why they’d picked him for Black Ops in the first place. An ability to see a target and get the job done, no matter the cost.   
“Why the hell would you want a guy like me to lead you?” Jack asked finally, turning to stare at him. “I did some damn despicable things to get those stars on my shoulder. Granted for the last decade I was saving the world and shit, but I’m not all that grandiose you know, I don’t do speeches.”

Preston shook his head. “We got no use for speeches, or ass hats with stars on their shoulders who don’t know which way to hold a rifle. I need a solider to lead us, someone that has seen combat, who understands war, because that’s what we’re fighting, out here every day. But your wrong about you,” he pointed at his chest. “You’re a hero Jack. You stand up and fight for what’s right, for your principles and you don’t quit. I’ve only been in a few fights with you, but I’ve listened. Those stories you tell about battles, your not that good a liar, there’s truth in those, however weird they sound.” He admitted, staring at him hard.   
“And then there’s Sam.” He added and Jack bristled. “A solider like her and woman like that doesn’t follow a fool. And she follows you, whether you want her to or not.”

Jack cocked his head and looked out over the horizon uncomfortable with praise at the best of times. “Sam’s my 2IC, I’m her CO, she’s doing what she was trained to do.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that Jack. But I don’t think Sam is the sort that would just blindly do as she’s told because some idiot in charge barked at her.”

“And yet.” He shrugged self depreciatingly. But Preston was still staring at him, not buying it, waiting for his answer. “I assume there won’t be a desk involved… or paperwork, because I don’t really do either of those.” Jack replied, feeling himself relenting.

Preston was grinning large remarkably white teeth at him. “Just a gun and a lot of enthusiastic support.” 

“Oh fine.” Jack muttered. “But lets not make a big fanfare out of it.”

Preston extended his hand. “Welcome General O’Neill the Minutemen are yours.” Jack accepted his hand. “It’s a honour to serve with you Sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone who's decided to come on this ride with me and left kudos and comments its great to know people are enjoying it. There's been a Chapter increase to 16 because for flow I decided to reduce the number of parts to this story to 3 for now.


	7. Survival Mode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Chapter warning that there are depictions of violence/gore/horror/swearing in this chapter, nothing gratuitous as it serves the plot, but I'm putting it here just in case for people.

Sam watched as Jack returned to the camp with Preston to the enthusiastic relief of the others. She understood the sentiment, whilst she was perfectly capable of keeping watch over Sanctuary, there was something about Jack that radiated security… strength. She was relieved herself to see him striding back in particularly how they’d left things.

She was sat under the awning on one of the rickety patio chairs, cleaning her rifle when his shadow passed in front of her. Hand up to shade her eyes she stared up at him silhouetted from the sun as he stood in front of her.

“I come baring ‘Tato’s’ he admitted tossing her one, “And a tonne of neat tricks for keeping the pesky blighters alive long enough to eat. Also… Brahmin, those two headed cow like things we saw that once on the way up here, were cows or near as they got, good milk though, we should catch one.”

Sam leant back so her head was in shade and he eased himself into the seat next to her. She couldn’t help but give him a once over, her eyes lingering on the rip and blood stain on his arm. He glanced at it. “Robot, was a clean gash, got it sown up.” He told her, his eyes scanning over her looking similarly for damage and finding none. It was nearly noon, she was faintly surprised and pleased they were back, she hadn’t expected them until tomorrow morning.

“I thought you were going to be another day or so.” She admitted, their last conversation still pressing heavily between them as his intense stare settled over her. Reminding her that the ball was firmly in her court at the moment.

He shrugged. “Was easier than expected.” He glanced up as Preston came and placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“Has the General told you yet about his little fan club… poor man had to high-tale it out of there.” Preston grinned wide and long at her, then stalked off and Sam watched him leave, seeing the annoyed set of Jack’s face and surmising that Preston hadn’t been supposed to mention that.

“Fan club huh?” she asked innocently.

“Apparently you were right, I should have worn a damn bandana.” He glowered and she smirked.

“Wouldn’t have helped.” She shrugged almost aping his words, “It’s your ass that’s pretty.” He startled, his eyes widening and she couldn’t help but smirk at the impact of her words on him and she was more than a little pleased, if slightly mortified by her instinct to make him think about her so soon after learning he’d been the object of someone else’s affections.

“Fortunately, my ass was covered.” He grinned. “Or I doubt I’d of gotten out of there in one piece. Persistent doesn’t cover it.” He muttered in mostly in what she suspected was mock indignation.  
“Sam.” He started and she felt the grin slip off her face as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees towards her, “It felt good out there, helping people. So I’ve decided to try and make a go of this, with Preston. Rebuild his Minutemen, spread a bit of hope and community through the Commonwealth. See if we can’t make it more liveable.” He explained and she felt a sinking feeling in her gut, he was going to go out there into the Wastes and keep doing his hero thing, that came as innately to him as breathing. Of course, she’d known he wouldn’t be able to just sit by and watch people suffer, not if he could help.

“Are you asking for my permission… or my help?” she asked, genuinely confused as to which and surprised again at the seeming ease to the shift in their power dynamics. A welcome one if she was honest, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to tolerate a lifetime out here in the Wastes or even a relationship with him, if that was where they were headed, if she was expected to tow the line like the good 2IC. 

“Both.” He replied and she got the distinct feeling it was more in what he wasn’t saying, the whole ‘it’s you and me babe against the world’ or something else ridiculously cliché.

“Is this you officially dissolving our Chain of Command Sir?” she asked coquettishly, smirking as his eyes widened for a moment. Apparently he’d expected her to take it badly, but then this wasn’t so much about them as it was about setting up a new sort of tactical unit out here. This was strategy, and sustainability. Not about dissolving regulations so they’re relationship such as it was could move forward. This for some reason she found easier to take.

“Yes.” He replied finally and she paused. Apparently, it was that simple for him. “We do this together or not at all. Partners?” He held his hand out to hers and Sam paused, considering. This was another step along the way to destroying their old relationship and building a new one, another brick so to speak in the wall that was home. Boarding it up, putting it away as a part of their lives that was done… past. Her knee jerk reaction of a few nights ago wasn’t there as immediately now. She had to admit, she hadn’t liked the feeling of watching him walk out of camp with Preston at his side, not because she didn’t think he could handle it, but because life out here was short and violent. She wasn’t sure she wanted the last time she spoke to him to be in anger, but then she wasn’t quite ready to watch him become her biggest regret either.

Sam reached forward and slipped her hand into his, he clasped it firmly and they shook. “Next time you walk out of here in a snit, I’ll shoot you… partner.” She smiled thinly at him dropping his hand and getting up to leave.

“I look forward to it… Samantha.” He called out, elongating her name to turn it into something utterly different and she shot him a look, he knew she hated being called that.

He did as promised. For the next month he didn’t mention their relationship, or rather lack of it, he didn’t mention Earth either, he merely let her think herself in knots, which had been his point, he was clearly hoping she’d see sense. They worked side by side each other and the small group of people, which was starting to grow. Two travellers had arrived they were farmers, which was helpful. They actually had a field in the centre of the town that had once been a playground which was starting to thrive with its new purpose. Strangely enough the crops seemed to grow fast, mutated like everything else into something hardier. But already the mutfruit they’d planted had flowered and the corn they’d finally found good enough soil to grow in was shooting up. It wasn’t the type of thing she’d ever seen herself doing, turning soil and planting crops, and mostly she stayed out of it, she had a knack for machines not plants. But she could still appreciate the irony of becoming farmers in a wasteland.

She accompanied Jack out on one of his Minutemen missions every now and again, mostly on tech recovery. The Satellite array they’d discovered by Abernathy Farm had proven to be a treasure trove with regards to copper wiring and parts, they’d even managed to disable and salvage one of the Sentry Bots at the abandoned Robotics Yard. Since then she’d spent quite a lot of time fixing it up, the thing was vicious and she’d honestly never seen anything like it. Sturgess had point blank refused to touch the thing, he’d said they were twitchy and that he’d known more than few mechs that had died trying to re-wire the things. Bad luck apparently. Tricky more likely. Military grade hardware judging by the insignia stamped on its frame, and they were designed to be tamper proof with some very specific hard-wired coding that made them lethal to the point of self-destruction. Which was what had almost happened to this one. Jack had tried to drag her away when it had started counting down from 10, until she’d pointed out that there wasn’t a safe distance if she was right about its power core being nuclear. At which point he’d done the sensible thing and let her go fix it. Which she had, even if it had electrocuted her in the process. 

She’d woken up about 12 foot from it having been blown back and Jack’s hands pressed to her chest, his mouth over hers, spluttering back to life. Apparently, her heart had stopped, so he said, she thought he might be exaggerating, but there was a scorch mark on her hand and another burn on her chest when she’d dared to look that night. That was twice now he’d saved her from death by electrocution, it was almost starting to become a habit. Her whole body ached like it had been dragged back from the edge of something at any rate.

Jack appeared in the doorway later that night as she’d angled the mirror they’d carried carefully up from the Vault on one of their recent supply runs, trying to see the damage.  
“Let me.” He stepped in and waved a pot of what one of the travelling medics had said was a cream that would work well on most injuries, including burns. It had seemed to fix up Mama Murphy when she’d gotten a little too close to the campfire in one of her half-baked meanderings.

Sam stared at him in the reflection for a moment, before nodding and pulling aside the wrapping she’d been using to strap up her breasts since her bra had given up the ghost, keeping her hand and arm firmly positioned to cover them she turned. He didn’t so much as make a lewd comment or even linger on the revealed skin. Just carefully got to work on the burn on her stomach, lathering the ointment onto her chest whilst she forgot how to breath at the feel of him touching her, even if it hurt. He stepped close until she could feel the heat of him inches from her, the intensity as he resolutely didn’t chew her out for almost dying… again. Then his hand slipped to press flat against her bare waste and he turned her gently so he could touch her back.

“It arced right through you.” He told her quietly, his hand pressing to a sore spot she hadn’t even realised was there on the opposite side towards her spine and she winced. The lotion was applied again with care and she savoured the illicit feel of his fingers against her skin for a moment as he lingered tracing an idle pattern. The cool soothing sensation seemed to spread and she couldn’t help but groan a little at the relief it offered from the searing heat that had gone bone deep. She supposed she was lucky it hadn’t been another inch to the right or it might have taken out her nervous system with a jolt that big. Or her heart.

“I did get the damn thing working again.” She pointed out wanting to defend herself against his oppressive silence, certain she could almost hear his internal rebuke. Right now that Sentry Bot was out on patrol, a walking tank that would make just about anything pause, even one of the Supermutant’s she’d heard so much about and had yet to meet thankfully.

“Yeah. And what good is it if your dead.” He replied sharply, letting his fingers fall away from her skin.  
“Let me see your hand.” He held out his for her and she reluctantly placed it there, the hand was the worst off having taken the brunt of the charge and a lot of the heat. He held it delicately, examining it and placing a dollop of the cream directly in the centre of her palm. She risked looking up as he rubbed it into the damaged skin, his eyes were on her hand, his expression pinched and focussed, taking the utmost care with her. She wondered if he’d look like that during sex. She’d thought about Jack and sex a lot over the years, she’d simultaneously hated and loved it when he’d appear in one of her fantasies, because whilst nothing made her come faster, it also left her feeling empty and wrong when she was done. Wanting what she couldn’t have had always been her guilty pleasure.

His eyes lifted as if sensing her scrutiny and she inhaled sharply at the searing look he gave her, his anger and desire for her laid bare, like the mask he’d worn all these years had simply blown away in a Radstorm out here.  
“Please don’t look at me like that.” She murmured, pulling her hand gently out of his, the soothing cream already doing its job and offering relief from the ache.

“I’ve always looked at you like this Sam. You’ve just never seen it before.” He countered.

“No, you haven’t.” She rasped. He cocked an eyebrow, ‘do tell’ it seemed to say. “If you had, I wouldn’t have managed to resist for eight years.” She countered.

The corner of his lip quirked up in a not-quite smile, but his eyes flashed dangerously. “You know, it’s ironic you almost getting yourself killed today… again.” He started, stepping forward and she inched back almost instinctively, he looked like a predator right now, all bright focussed eyes and sinuous movements that had her screaming to either give in or get away.  
“Given as today is 4 months to the day since we got stranded here, that’s 120 days of this place Sam.” He told her and she reached a wall, bumping into it and almost startling when she realised he’d backed her into it.  
“Four months is the official SGC deadline to declare anyone involved in a stargate malfunction of some sort, presumed KIA… based I’ll have you know, on my little 100 day field trip.” He informed her quietly, his dark eyes boring into her.

Sam shook her head. “No, they’d keep looking you know Daniel, he won’t let them declare that.”

Jack gave her a look that was almost pitying and she cast her eyes down, not wanting to see that as she bit her lip, trying to force back tears that threatened. “Tell me Carter, what was the longest it would take them to get a ship out to old P4M…?” he pressed and she closed her eyes.

“A month, two at most.” She replied not having to think hard, she’d thought about that exact scenario before. “The Prometheus would have been able to reach it well within that time frame.” She added, he knew that, hell she knew that she just didn’t want to say it.

“Not to mention the Asgard, or the Tok’ra,” he continued this line of thought for them. “Because I doubt very much Dad would just leave it to chance, he’d want to go look at that world where you’d gone MIA.” Jack added, sounding for all the world like a lecturer and she wondered if that was how she sounded when she was trying to convince him he was being an idiot too.

Sam nodded, feeling sick. She knew what he was trying to do. Push her past denial and straight into anger… even if it was at him. He’d said that she was grieving her old life, she hadn’t realised how true that might be even as she fought for alternate explanations and reasons they’d keep looking.

“And what do you reckon they’d find there, because we know it won’t have been us.” He poked and she sighed, looking back up at him.

“The amount of energy required to distort the wormhole the way it did…” she rubbed her fingers over her forehead for a moment, she didn’t need to calculate, she’d known the moment she realised what had happened. “It would have to have been some sort of detonation, maybe even a blast from a ship in orbit.”

“So, a smoking crater?” He reasoned and she nodded. “And say they found the gate miraculously intact along with the DHD.” He questioned. “What would it tell them?” His voice appeared calm on the surface but she could hear the bite in it now after so long with him, it meant he was losing his patience.

“You can stop it; I get your point!” She snapped, angry tears threatening as she choked back a sob to reach for rage instead of despair.

“Say it!” he insisted getting right into her face, she must have looked pale or queasy maybe both at his sudden aggressive insistence she face this because his whole demeanour seemed to soften instantly and he cupped her face in his hands.  
“Tell me?” He all but pleaded, needing her to break through this wall finally. To accept her grief and let it go.

Sam felt tears spill down her cheeks at the sudden tenderness and his thumbs gently brushed the them away. “That we entered the gate and that the matter stream collapsed, or experienced an unexpected error.” She closed her eyes. “It would tell them we died in transit most likely.” She admitted it finally, they’d think they were dead and stop looking. And even if they didn’t, there was probably no way to recreate the event from their end to get them back, no reason for them even to suspect this.

He sighed. “Sam, we’re dead. They aren’t looking for us. Not anymore. I just, I’m not asking you to stop looking for a way home, I’m just asking that you stop using it as an excuse. If…” He started, “Or when we get back,” he amended taking in her shaky resolve as she reached up and covered his hands with her own, “things won’t be the same, they’ll have moved on, because they had to, it’s what people do.” He brushed her cheeks one last time and she let his hands go as he withdrew them.  
“Even if it’s another three months, or if its years…” he trailed off looking almost resigned to that prospect, “We have to live Sam. Otherwise what was the point in surviving at all?”

She felt her legs give out on her and she let him draw her into his arms as he sunk down to the floor with her, wrapping her up and holding her close whilst she let herself admit it. Her bare chest wrapped in their arms as he cradled her and she barely even noticed as she pressed her back against his covered chest. Their friends weren’t going to save them, and getting out of here on this end was looking like a pipe dream, this might well be her new reality and the horror of that crashed around her.

“I don’t know if I can do this Jack… live like this out here.” She rasped turning and burying her face in his chest, her tears already soaking through his shirt. He raised his hand to her head and gently stroked her hair. Reaching over and retrieving her leather jacket and dropping it lightly around her shoulders to protect her modesty a moment later as she settled against him.

“You’re already doing it Sam, for the last 4 months we’ve done okay, haven’t we?” he pressed, “Well except for your mild death wish.” He grumbled and she let out a hiccoughing laugh as his hand dropped to gently brush the wound on her stomach, an intimate touch that should have felt more surprised by, but it seemed almost easy, it wasn’t sexual, he just wanted to take care of her and she felt that keenly.  
“Please, you gotta be more careful Sam. I don’t want to be stuck here without you.”

The words hit her hard, as did the brutal honesty in which he was delivering them and she clutched her fingers in his shirt, dragging him closer. The smell of him overwhelming her senses with a sense of safety and belonging, a shared history. She pressed her lips to his throat, to the warmth of his skin there and just let herself be surrounded by him as it pushed away some of the overwhelming sense of grief and despair she felt sweeping in as she finally felt hope slip away, to be replaced by a different kind of hope. An old hope.  
“I’m sorry.” She offered, meaning it even as tears continued to fall. 

He nodded, his arms around her he held her like that until she felt herself start to fall asleep with the gentle rhythm of his heartbeat against her ear.  
“Come on.” He quickly did up a couple of buttons on her jacket to cover her as she slipped her arms in and he all but picked her up, supporting her suddenly incredibly fatigued body as she put one foot in front of the other and slowly made her way to the bed’s they’d set up in one of the more secure houses in a back room that offered a little privacy at least from the other sleeping occupants in the house. She didn’t say a word as she lay on the mattress, but when he went to leave she reached out and grasped his hand.

“Stay with me?” She whispered, not certain it was fair of her, given as how he’d made his feelings and his intentions clear for them, but right now she just wanted the warmth and comfort of his arms back. They hadn’t slept this close since he’d declared his intentions to her on the roof that first time, she hadn’t dared and he hadn’t felt welcome enough. But she could deal with the ramifications of that in the morning.  
He sighed looking resigned but he nodded and eased onto the threadbare mattress behind, his arms going around her careful of her wounds as he spooned their bodies together. “Thank you.” She murmured and he leant forward and pressed his head to the back of hers, just holding there.

“Any time.” He replied gently and she smiled, maybe abandoning hope wasn’t so bad.

\---*---

Jack left the bed before she woke the next morning, mostly because he couldn’t bear to have her wake up and stiffen to feel him behind her, not when he’d enjoyed the sensation of holding her like that. Of being able to actually comfort her. But at least the damn had burst, he felt that for the first time she might have truly accepted the fact that there was only a snowballs chance in hell of them getting back to their Earth. If had just been another planet, or even a time hop he might have held out hope, but this… without a stargate, hell just food and shelter were a bloody problem out here, let alone traversing dimensions. Here, hope only hurt her.

She appeared an hour later and he handed her the ‘porridge’ or what they were loosely terming it from the fast-growing corn and wheat crops. Marcie it turned out had her uses, she’d apparently grown up on a farm, and with the help of some of their neighbouring towns they were staring to get a fairly steady supply of trade caravans coming through. 

Sam smiled gently at him and he brushed his fingers over hers as he handed over the bowl, his smile widening when she didn’t pull away, allowing the contact as she sat beside him to eat. Mostly they spent their time in companionable silence or spit-balling ideas for security or the community they were building. This Minutemen thing was taking off. Enough that a bunch of raiders had come calling that morning.

Jack had barely got his gun up and darted out to find cover when the rip-roar of the Sentry bot and the turrets Sam had set up lit up like the fourth of July, that along with the perimeter minefield, had them utterly obliterated. He stood his ears ringing as a smoking arm landed a few feet from where he stood. He stared at it with grim satisfaction and turned back to where Sam was lying perched up on the roof with her rifle. She gave him a ‘targets eliminated’ gesture and he returned a thumbs up.

Sturgess stumbled out, shaking his head and patting his ears as the Sentry bot trundled back up along the street looking no worse for wear. “Wow… guess they won’t be trying that again!” he muttered seemingly coming around to Sam’s crazy idea of converting the thing.

Jack nodded. “Maybe we ought to get on the radio and make it clear to the traders that they need to stop at the perimeter… I’m guessing we don’t want them blowing up.” Jack gave Sturgess a thumb gesture suggesting he go deal with and the other man grimaced and gave him a mini-salute and ran off to do just that.

Jack picked up a rusted piece of sheet metal that used to part of one of the houses and handed it to Jun, who was good with his hands, generally speaking. “Think you can make us a ‘Beware the Sentry Bot’ sign’, you know with a STOP symbol.” Jun rolled his eyes, which was as close to a conversation as he got, but he took the metal and wandered off.  
“Thanks! Nice chat!” Jack quipped, and got a middle finger-up response, so he thought that was progress.

It wasn’t the life he was used to, but it had its perks. Granted he’d thought his retirement might involve less back breaking manual labour with the occasional burst of heart pounding adrenalin as something attacked or breached their perimeter. One of those perks however was in front of him right now; Sam in cut off shorts and a vest helping him re-border their expanding farming area with the white picket fences they’d gathered up from around the town. Watching her bend over, all hot and sweaty, acres of long pale skin starting to tan and freckle, he shifted his crotch, well it was one of the better ways to spend an afternoon.

Of course, the months of relative peace in Sanctuary they’d found, were bound to come to a crashing halt. He’d volunteered to go out and recruit a town to the East towards Salem. He should have known that it would turn out to be a shitstorm, particularly because there was talk of the Salem Museum of Witchcraft and an Insane asylum in that direction which had just about wigged him out. Preston wasn’t fond of ‘East’ apparently and was due a little R&R, so that left Sam as his mostly willing companion, she seemed to need the change of scenery. Apparently, there was a local group holed up near Greentop that needed some protection to reach the coast and had decided going East was safer than South. Codsworth had come with them, but mostly because he needed the parts from the General Atomics Galleria that they’d agreed to meet the group at as a mutual location.

Sam and Codsworth had a field day inside, she’d pretty much repaired and generally pimped his ride and loaded him full of so much junk he was starting to suspect she was treating the robot as her own personal caddy. She’d sent him back to Sanctuary with instructions not to stop for anyone or anything. He’d trundled off remarkably pleased with himself with a ‘thank you so much Ma’am your too kind’. 

“Having fun?” he queried seeing her grinning and admiring the look on her as she hopped the remnants of a robot that looked to have been like old Codsy once upon a day.

“Yep. The Director inside the Galleria is a robot… well he is now, I’m pretty sure it killed the last one. But he thinks I’m some big Supervisor come to launch his opening Galleria, I didn’t correct him. He turned the whole thing back on and it just went right on ticking, it’s incredible Jack, 200 years old and it just went on like clockwork.” She was beaming back at the factory which did appear to have come to life.  
“They’re willing to trade for parts and various tech.” She added. “I managed to get a look at one of their robotics manufacturing platforms, I think they might let me have a play at designing something, he called it a ‘special addition’.” She grinned widly her blue eyes dancing with sheer unbridled nerdy delight and he adored it, even as he felt a flash of trepidation at it.

Jack held his hands up. “Ahahah…. You’ve seen the Terminator yes?” he reminded. “And that oh so lovely fella by the name of Harlan, remember him and your oh so perfect robot self? Replicators?” he poked and she grimaced, which was good. He liked her enthusiastic, just not ‘that’ enthusiastic, bad things happened when Carter and robots got together for a party. Her evil twin was case and point.

“I know Jack.” She glared. “But your mixing apples and Oranges.” He blinked.

“Come again?”

“Your talking robots and AIs. Robots are a tool, machine code. Those make sense, they have a purpose. Hell even Harlan’s bodies were robots just with a human consciousness downloaded. The replicators…. The Entity that took over me, they were Artificial Intelligence. FYI it was Skynet the AI that caused judgement day in Terminator… Jack.” 

He sucked in a breath and decided he’d poked a hornets nest. He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, look. Whatever. All I’m saying is, lets exercise a little restraint huh, caution.”

“This from the man that sticks his head in Ancient repositories and touches everything that is clearly going to do something calamitous.” She snipped.

He looked mock offendedly over at her and shrugged, okay fair point. “Good word. Calamitous.” He conceded, “And I don’t touch everything.” He retorted. “Plenty of times I sat there perfectly happy with my yoyo whilst you and Daniel touched stuff. Hey… Orlin. I told you not to touch that honkin space gun of his!” He wagged a finger at her and frowned at her smirk realising what he’d said as she blushed and chuckled to herself for a minute. Doh.

“Living crystals.” She came back with suddenly, accusing as she stood hands on her hips daring to challenge him, and he realised he’d missed the banter, they’d always been good at it. It helped that he felt a splash of the old sexual tension pinging back and forth.

“Quantum mirror!” He replied curtly, looking smug and she shook her head.

“Wrong nerd.” She smirked at him. “That was Daniel.”

He frowned. “No, I distinctly recall shenanigans… the long-haired blonde you.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow at him. “I can’t be blamed for what my doppleganger touched.”

“Oh but you can.” He smirked.

“Jack. I’m not arguing with you, it’s pointless. Look, these things are barely robots, their programs are mostly a series of badly worded coding. The fact that they can operate at all is a wonder.”

Their little group appeared a few hours of banter later. Apparently, they’d run into a spot of bother around a cemetery, a few ghouls seemed to have gotten their scent, but they’d taken a wide birth which had cost them time. Jack nodded, a 4 hour detour was impressive but it had let Carter do her thing and set up another trading post so he couldn’t complain too much. Plus he’d got to poke her about some things he’d always wanted to… 

“So shall we?” he asked, and looked for a leader of this little group. Non presented itself. “Where to?” he asked trying again.

“East.” One of them helpfully offered, a scraggly guy that looked like he had more chems in him than blood. 

“Excellent plan.” He muttered. The rest looked a bit more respectable, one of them had the same ridiculous half up half down militia hat of Preston’s. Another Minuteman in the making.

“General.” He clapped his hand into his and they shook. “Preston’s been spreading your good word wide, Minutemen are coming back.” He grinned, looking all of twenty something, but his grip was strong and he knew which way to hold a rifle. “I’m Jeeves.”

“Really?” Jack asked grinning, the man looked at him confused, Jack sighed, humour sucked out here, all his best pop culture was wasted. “So how many you got?” Jack asked, surprised at the numbers, he thought he’d counted maybe twenty at a glance.

“We’re 17. Started out at 19, but two of the youngsters got spooked, ran off into the forest few miles back, I didn’t have the resources to go after them and keep this lot together. Besides its her choice. This convoy’s going East, one this size we gotta keep moving.”

Jack nodded, he knew there was a lot of shit out there it wasn’t his place to judge who got left behind and who got saved.

“Just the two of you?” Jeeves asked eyeing him and Carter. Jack shrugged and held up his rifle.

“Yeah but we’ve got some big ass guns and a plucky attitude.” Jack smirked and Sam gave a thumbs up.

It should have worked. They hit the raider tower that was causing so much grief over at Lynn’s wood. Made it to the top and hit the siren that drove off the damn pair of Deathclaws they had conditioned to come do their dirty work whilst they cowered at the top. Apparently, these bastards had been picking people off for almost a year now with this setup. It was going well, danger averted, Sam and Jeeves had downed one of the Deathclaws and sent the other scrambling to the hills, the wail of the siren too much for its sensitive hearing. They’d regrouped feeling somewhat smug and a little proud of themselves as they entered the Wood.

What no one it seemed had counted on, was the pack Feral Ghouls that apparently hadn’t taken kindly to the fact that Jeeves and his little band of hikers had disturbed their resting places. He didn’t know they could or would track over distance. But he learnt something important that day, several things in fact. That ghouls had to be killed on sight the minute they got scent of you, and that he’d rather face a Deathclaw than a rotting walking corpse. And finally that one ghoul maybe two was horrible but manageable… an entire pack of them was not.

Preston had described Feral’s to him and Jack had prayed that their luck would hold and they’d avoid a run in with them and so far they had, but he supposed their luck had run out. It might have gone down different if they’d had some space to work with, seen them coming, but the Radstorm had hit so suddenly (as they did) and left them plunged in darkness inside a damn forest. Hell, maybe if he’d known about their blood hound like skills when you disturb a Ghoul nest he might have turned the group away, or set an ambush. But as usual out here he was working without a playbook, up was down and everything could kill you.

They were practically defenceless in the damn woods, spread out, caught out and lost stumbling in the near fucking dark. The electrical dust storm above choking out the light and casting everything into a gloomy red and grey haze. Perfect weather for Ghouls.

The nasty little bastards had been on them so quickly and they were silent as the fucking grave, faster than anything half-rotted away had a right to be. You couldn’t see much, mostly he could just hear the screams and the tearing of flesh as one after another of his charges was yanked down and into the dark as they tried to stay together. He fired his gun almost blindly into the trees, going against every instinct he had, but he had to assume that anyone ripped off the group was dead, all that mattered was who was stood beside him, still alive and running. 

It was FUBAR, the whole damn situation and he’d known instinctively, just as he suspected Sam did by the wild look on her face, that their chances of getting out this forest alive were going to be down to one thing… if you were faster than the monsters chasing them… or just faster than everyone else. 

“Where the hell are they?” Sam shouted out, barely slowing as she dragged some of the others that had stayed close with them as they all ran like their lives literally depended on it, darting through the trees and jumping over roots. 

“Everywhere.” Jack snarled in horrid realisation that they were all going to die at this rate.

He was here to protect these people, but they’d bought this hell down on themselves, and realistically he knew couldn’t save them. Not from this. But Sam… he wasn’t about to watch her get ripped apart and eaten alive in some god damn forest. 

Sam was the mission now. 

He kept pace with her almost at her shoulder, as she fired blindly beside him as they ran flat out, gunfire lighting up the gloom of the tree cover and revealing nothing, until suddenly there was a flash of skin and teeth as a rotted body lunged for you from the dark. He was starting to suspect based on the fact that some of these fuckers seemed to be coming up from the ground that this fucking Lynn Woods might have been infested too. One pack of feral ghouls, became two as with a cry of alarm he dropped Sam’s hand and leapt over one that was crawling out of the undergrowth ahead of him and shot his gun downwards as he went airborne. He landed heavily his knees not thanking him as he managed to turn it into a roll, back on his feet his eyes fixed on Sam and the small handful of people that were keeping pace with them, not looking back to see if he’d felled the thing. Sam’s own handgun was flashing having slung her rifle over her chest as she fired at something charging in from the right.

The young Minuteman Jeeves almost crashed into him, emerging from the woods with a look of white-faced terror and relief at seeing someone alive. He’d lost his gun Jack noted as he shot the thing chasing him as he hurried to keep up with Sam’s small group he counted five maybe; ramping down the panic he could feel with training and letting the adrenalin fuel is legs and his aim rather than his fear. The sounds of gunfire from deeper in the woods and the screaming was getting fainter as people fought their own pitched battles alone.

“General!” Jeeves yelled as he hit the ground, a white hand around his leg taking him out. Jack turned, glancing back and watched as three of the ugly ragged fuckers leapt on his back and then he was yanked back into the gloom before he’d even manage to get a shot off to help the poor lad. It was too late, Jack knew that even as he let off a blast of rounds and there was a spray of blood and an inhuman screech. But Jeeves never came out he slowed almost to a stop, before Sam was grabbing his arm. 

“Move!” She all but barked at him, her voice broken with the harsh breathing from the exertion, he couldn’t agree with her sentiment more as he forced his legs to work. Guilt lancing him until he slammed that in a box too and focused on staying alive long enough to feel that.

He didn’t know how many there were, but when he managed to kill or wound one, it seemed there were seemingly ten more to take its place. He could smell them, like something cloying in the back of his throat, festered. The small group they’d managed to keep alive started to splinter off, or fall behind, running in their own direction despite Sam’s desperate calls for them to stay together. They had guns, but not the aim at a flat out run like he and Sam had. Not to mention the fact that he and Sam were fast, fit and better nourished than most these poor bastards, they also had instincts that made them shoot at whatever the fuck was chasing them and not hesitate. The others never had a chance really.

In moments it seemed they’d lost everyone else, Jack tried, Jesus he tried, but you can’t fight what you can’t see not when your running flat out stumbling over half the damn forest. He saved one and another, only to have them stumble and be set upon, blood sprayed, he didn’t know whose anymore. It was over… it came down to his primary mission. Sam. 

He grabbed her hand, as with everything even scared out of their minds and running flat out, they were in sync, their hands moving together to help spur them forward in a downward motion as her long legs kept pace beside him.

“Don’t stop, fuck don’t stop.” He panted, his knees aching like a son of a bitch. Sam was right there with him, the screams had stopped, so had the wet tearing sound that he knew meant that the people he was supposed to be protecting were dead. A hand clawed at him out of the dark and he shoved his 10mm at it, a spray of blood. Sam was tugged violently to his left, she punched something hard and he jolted her back to his side aiming his gun in that direction.

The sounds of gunfire and screaming in the woods narrowed down to just the desperate sounds of he and Sam fleeing in the dark, chased by the inhuman sound of bone grinding on bone and moaning wails and growls that signalled their deaths keeping pace behind them.

“This way!” she rasped tugging on his hand to change their direction, her eyes darting just the once to the PipBoy on her arm. Hell, he’d have followed her anywhere anyway and he sure as shit wasn’t letting go, he just hoped his knees would hold out a little longer. Granted it was that or be torn apart and eaten alive, which as motivators go, was a powerful one. Although he had a moment, when he heard the water and saw an answering shimmer way down in the dark, where he wondered if he’d really follow her off a cliff.

His legs hit an edge. “Jump!” She screamed, even as his legs did as commanded and he was airborne. Instinct straightened him out, had him exhale sharply as the water met him his feet passing through the surface with shocking force and it took everything he had to keep  
clinging onto her hand like the lifeline it was. He went under and the water was so fucking cold his whole body seized for a moment and he had to fight to the surface, dragging Sam up beside him as they surfaced spluttering. At least it was deep water he considered how bad that could have gone.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck!” Sam was spluttering between coughs and she grabbed at his jacket, clinging to him. He shook his head, trying to clear it as he focused on her swearing shaking form. Then a body hurtled into the water next to them at bone jarring speed with a screech… only it either didn’t remember to brace or couldn’t hold the sack of bone and rotting flesh it called a body together as it hit the water hard. The ghoul shattered on impact. 

Then another, and another. 

Like lemmings they leapt from the cliff face after their meal ticket and hit the water that was as hard as concrete from that height. Blood, bone, brain and bile rained down around them like confetti. He watched in mute horror as the water they were floating in turned red and the stench clawed at him.

“Jesus Christ.” He gasped, Sam’s face swam in front of his vision, her hair streaked with red and god knows what. They floated like that clinging to each other for what felt like an eternity as the water around them turned into a floating graveyard, both of them to numb from cold and sheer heart stopping terror to say anything. 

Finally the snarling and wailing stopped as did the splashes indicating an impact until the water was suddenly calm and grotesque all around them. 

“Out.” He hissed, trying to force his bodies shock into movement as they swam frantically to the edge and dragged themselves out of the water. Jack didn’t dare stop, maybe it was luck that had those brainless things throwing themselves off the cliffs. He had no idea if there were more. But there was no more noise, or movement and he stood on the shore, heart thudding dangerously as he listened. 

Satisfied for the moment he turned back to Sam treading water in the shallow and tugged her behind him up and out of the water.  
“We got to keep moving.” He insisted recognising the signs of shock and maybe hypothermia setting in on them both as he fought with the disconnect in his limbs. 

Sam nodded, then suddenly stopped, her hand yanked out of his and he spun in surprise to see her suddenly bend double and he darted out the way as she threw up. His hand went instantly to her back as she expelled the adrenalin and a good chunk of foul water violently for a full minute, until there was nothing left but bile. His stomach lurched and he fought his own reaction. 

Her eyes raised to his, wide with horror and terror. Blood streaked her red hair and her skin and other things he didn’t dare look too closely at. Knowing he probably looked the same. His hands were tacky with it as he reached for her own.  
“My God, those people…” She managed looking faint.

“We can mourn for them later, right now we got to move Sam.” He took hold of his rifle from around his chest his hand shaking as he held it to his side, ready, and focused on one foot in front of the other, using Sam’s PibBoy as a light to cut through the gloom of the electrical storm that continued to rage above, they stumbled back to the road, heading back to Sanctuary… back home rather than seek shelter.

To be frank he didn’t fancy anyone’s chances if they ran into them, they looked like they’d just run through a charnel house and he was so twitchy he’d blow the head of anything that moved. Fortunately, Sam didn’t seem to be in the mood to take a break. Although her silence and the deathly grey pallor were concerning, as was the death grip she kept on his hand, but then he couldn’t blame her. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking either. He barely remembered the journey home, his body acting on instinct only, years of training kicking in and pushing the horror down deep as he did what he did best. He got his team home.

They stumbled into Sanctuary like slasher movie survivors, there were exclamations and chatter as they emerged from the gloom. Preston had the presence of mind to get them both to the stream. At least this water wasn’t irradiated anymore thanks to Sam’s purifier that was still clanging and whirring away upstream. And whilst normally he might have protested the dunk in water again so soon after what had happened in the last one, but right now he just wanted to get the sticky stench of congealed blood and rotted flesh off him and Sam. 

He pulled her in and held her close as he dunked them both. Running his hands over her body and scrubbing the shit off her. Their clothes were saturated in blood he realised grimly as she pushed his hands away and started stripping off with the military efficiency he knew her for. 

The storm had passed a few hours ago, but the dark of night had steadily rolled in and he could barely see in front of his face until Preston shoved a lantern down on the bank and started up a barrel fire for them to warm up in afterwards.

“Preston, get us some clothes would you?” He asked the dark-skinned man stood watching them on the bank, a grim look on his face dappled with the eery firelight told him he’d almost been waiting for a horror like this to wake Jack up to the Wastelands true nature.

“What was it?” he asked but Jack suspected he already knew.

“Feral Ghouls I think, lots.” Jack replied. “Rotting flesh bags that don’t stop when you shoot em… right?” he questioned to make sure this wasn’t something else he had yet to hear about.

“Yeah, that’s them.” Preston gave him a nod of understanding then turned and disappeared off whilst Jack stripped off his military cargo pants discarding them certain he’d never want to touch the damn things again, last piece of their world or not.

Sam was stood shivering, but not moving. He recognised the signs of shock. “Sam.” He approached slowly the red streaks in her light hair stood out starkly still. Though she might not look like it, Sam was as lethal as he was even unarmed and spooking her wasn’t wise. Hands up he stood in front of her.

“I’m going to get these clothes off, alright?” He asked, noting that she’d stopped half way through when he assumed her hands had stopped working. He got a sharp nod from her as she stared at a point somewhere over his shoulder. He took that for permission and helped lift her arms and shimmy her out of the wet filth encrusted clothes, tossing them onto the bank, probably to burn like his. When it came to the bandages she used to wrap up her chest he placed her hands at the start and gently started her hand in the familiar pattern to unwind it, as he eased in front of her, shielding her body from the eyes of literally everyone in Sanctuary that were gawping from various vantage points at them, but it was dark and at most they got an outline of them. 

Preston appeared and dropped a bunch of clothes on the ground at the shore. He picked up the discarded ones, Jack half expected him to toss them into the barrell but he carefully bundled them up and started washing them out in the river for them. Marcie appeared at his side and took them off him, whilst Jack watched mutely from his position chest deep in water. He should have known that out here there was nothing wasted and a little thing like blood wasn’t going to stop them from using those clothes again. 

Marcie shoved them all into a bucket and with a long look at them both followed by a nod she turned and took them back to sanctuary and the campfire to scrub them out for them. Like Preston she didn’t seem to know, or rather feel the need to say anything to them. As if there was a common understanding that shit like this happened and you just had to wash it off. Jack looked up expecting to see people gawping, but despite the dark, he knew they weren’t, he saw silhouettes huddled around the fire, some glanced back at him, but mostly they would be left in peace and privacy to deal with the aftermath.

“Thank you.” Jack called out to Preston as he turned to leave. The man tipped his hat at him.

“It’s nothing. You have done enough for us, we’re here for you, all of us. Get some rest, we’ll keep watch to make sure they’re gone.” He told him, which was exactly what Jack realised he needed to hear, a flicker of doubt and paranoia had remained that maybe those things would track them back here too. Preston retreated back towards the centre of camp, leaving them to fall apart out here alone. 

Jack felt some of his shell crack a little and he barked out a sob, scrubbing at his eyes furiously for a moment as if to try and shove the emotion back in and down. Sam’s hands went to this wrists and she tugged them gently down from his eyes and she stood there naked and waste deep in water and he didn’t care. His eyes entirely on her face, a mirror to his own feelings. 

“I know.” She let out a sound close to a sob and crushed him against her, dragging his head down to her shoulder and just holding him there whilst he let his own pain and shock rock out of him. He wanted to rage and scream, but this… this tenderness he wasn’t sure he deserved. He’d let those people die. Horribly. They were his charge and no one had walked away. But Sam was in the same boat, she understood their pain mirrored and she needed him almost as desperately as he needed her as they clung to each other. He’d completed his primary mission at least she was alive, and they’d saved each other.

That night he’d held her, but neither of them slept, every now and again he’d feel her start to soften and doze, only to startle awake with a gasp of horror. She finally gave up the pretence a few hours before dawn and had strode outside and set the campfire going. He’d joined, mostly because he couldn’t stand the idea of her out of his sight right now. He eased down next to her on the stump. They didn’t speak, it was easier that way he realised grimly, after all what was there to say. They’d survived something awful, a lot of good people hadn’t. It had been senseless, brutal, not like the kind of violence the military taught you to expect. He did the only thing he could, he reached out and held her hand, sliding his fingers into hers and reminded her that he was here… or reminded himself.

Jack heard the light-footed approach and turned, to see Preston stood there, he’d been on watch Jack presumed based on his gear, just as he’d promised, trying to give them enough peace of mind to sleep it off safe here at least. Preston eased onto a log the other side of the fire and didn’t look at them. Not even when he spoke, his gaze intent on the flames.

“How many Ghouls were there?” He asked.

Jack scuffed his boot. “A lot, fairly sure they woke up most of Boston’s Crematorium. The damn things followed them. Then there were more in the Woods, they were in the ground, rotting I guess.”

Preston did look at both of them then, but Jack couldn’t read the expression on his face, he wasn’t sure if it was pity or wonder. “You survived a swarm. I didn’t know that was possible.”

Jack glanced at Sam. “Yeah not so sure exactly that we survived it.”

The Minutemen leant back against his stump, stretching out to the fire and eyeing them both. “You kill them all?”

“Accidentally.” Sam replied before he could.

The other man nodded. “You know, I thought I’d seen it all, but you two…” he trailed off and clicked his teeth together. “Most regular folks don’t just accidentally destroy an entire pack or two packs of feral Ghouls once they’ve zeroed in like that. They’re like a force of nature, locusts swarming over an area destroying anything with a pulse.”

“Yeah well it wasn’t good enough was it, everyone else is dead!” Sam snarled, her anger redirecting onto Preston who was stupid enough to go poking. “We lost the entire convoy, 17 people died in those fucking woods.”

“Your both alive.” Preston shrugged. “I’d say that’s good enough.” Sam stood all but hurling her bowl to the ground and storming away.

Jack looked to Preston. “Future kind of sucks.” He offered with grimace. 

Preston tipped the brim of his hat at him in acknowledgement. “You don’t know the half of it.”

[1 Week Later]

They’d developed a don’t ask don’t tell policy around the whole event. It suited Jack but he felt that for Sam suppression might not be the healthiest option. It seemed to bleed out of her in other ways, either in frustration at one of their group, or in her somewhat obsessive drive to make the sentry bot and Codsworth ever more deadly.

Sturgess came to stand beside him, drinking a bottle of flat warm beer and they both stood and watched Sam.

“She doing what I think she’s doing?” he asked after few minutes.

“Yep.” Jack muttered.

“You going to say something?”

He gave Sturgess a thousand-yard stare. “Nope.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged and sat down on the edge of the porch his feet dangling over whilst Sam constructed what Jack was fairly certain would turn out to be some sort of short range missile turret.  
“She always been this…?” Sturgess seemed to struggle to find a word.

“Focused.” “Scary.” They said in unison.

Jack grinned. “Oh yeah. We were sort of an elite squad, first time I met her, she damn near publicly eviscerated me for calling her a woman with just that smart mouth of hers.”

“She is a woman.” Sturgess frowned, and Jack grunted, forgetting they didn’t seem to have gender politics here, which was refreshing and one of the only score points this place got.

Jack joined him on the floor, eyeing the unopened beer in his toolbelt and indicating for him to fork it over. He did and Jack cracked it open. Their damn nifty preservation technology had kept it sterile but it hadn’t kept it from going flat. But it was beer. “God this pigswill is awful.” He muttered, wiping the back of his mouth.

“Yeah, it’s what we got though.” Sturgess nodded. “I found a chem lab stashed out back, guess a bunch of raiders set up here once. Might be able to get a decent homebrew going. That Totte fella that came through and is bedded down across the way seems to have some skill at that, he turned some raw ingredients from the farm the other day into a solvent and some adhesive for Sam’s ‘Battle-bots of Death’.”

“That what we calling them?” Jack’s ears perked up, “Kinda has a nice ring to it.”

“Yeah until they wig out and attack us.” Sturgess muttered, “Machines I like just fine… robots not so much.”

“Me neither.” Jack replied. “Been on the wrong end of too many of them. I think we should leave the walking, talking, thinking to the humans.”

They lapsed into silence, which suited Jack, he thought he was starting to see what Sam liked about this guy.

“You did good you know, getting you both back. I know those people died, but you two are important, staying alive is what you gotta do now. I mean you two save people. Like us. Just look at this place, there’s a genuine town starting here.” He encompassed the slowly coming together place that Jack was a little proud of, with the houses being rebuilt, the defences and his little farm. Even the BBQ pit had a homey feel to it.  
“What I’m saying is, I’m glad you two survived, even if you’re not so happy about it right now.”

“Is that really enough for you people. Surviving?” Jack asked, because the question had been bugging him for a long time.

Sturgess shrugged. “The only other option is to lay down and die.”

“True.” Jack muttered, fingering the faded label on his beer. 

“So, I hear the two of you aren’t really married.” Sturgess turned, propping an arm on his bent knee to scrutinise him. 

Jack quirked an eyebrow at him, hoping to divert that line of question with a non-response. “Don’t give me that.” Sturgess snorted. “I get it, I mean look at her.” He turned and nodded at Sam. “Woman’s hotter than hell and can strip probably you and the gun your holding down to parts in seconds.” He smirked. “They don’t make them like her anymore, I can tell you.”

Jack glanced over at Sam, it was sweltering hot and she had that damn tank top on again with a pair of leathers that really emphasised her ass when she squatted down to do whatever the hell it was she was doing to the turret. “No, they don’t.” he replied quietly.

“You got it bad huh?” Sturgess was persistent, he’d give him that.

“Probably.” Jack sighed. “We’ve served together a long time, I’m supposed to be her boss. Used to make things between us… complicated.”

“You been with her?” Sturgess asked casually, running his hand up his almost horizontal hair do. Mind you with a shock of hair like that he reminded Jack slightly of Elvis. With more apocalypse sheek.

“Not like that.” He coughed, a little embarrassed, “We kissed, once or twice.” He confessed it sounded childish like that somehow and no way explained the depth of his feelings for her.  
“She’s… well she left someone behind. Letting go of her old life is proving to be an issue for us.”

Sturgess snorted. “Nah, it ain’t.” He told him with clear incredulity at what he was clearly considering to be Jack’s stupidity.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the guy that was sat there claiming to know Carter better than he did after only a few months. “Scuse you.” He growled with irritation.

“I’m telling you.” The younger man grinned, “She’s got it bad for you too. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen her checking you out. And no woman lets a man pretend she’s their wife and spoon up behind her in bed like I seen you two night after night, without something being there.”

Pressing his lips into a thin line Jack decided this was a dangerous line of conversation. He and Sam had their issues to resolve. He’d left his heart staked out in the sun for her, she’d yet to come retrieve it.

“Maybe it’s time you did more than just surviving out here too.” Sturgess offered with a parting look before heading over to Sam to ‘help’ ensure that the missiles didn’t go off into the house. Jack nodded to himself, it was the same damn argument he’d used on Sam too, maybe it was time he started taking his own advice.


	8. Commonwealth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Explicit warning tag. Various mature readers warnings see previous chapters. Descriptions of torture.

For the next few days he and Preston went out, day after day and tried to find something good. Something worth doing. Mostly it was just clearing out a pack of nasties, or keeping tabs and running errands for the local settlements. Until inevitably they ran into a Supermutant group. Because why not, he clearly needed the apocalyptic trifecta out on Minuteman patrol, robots, ghouls and mutants.

Jack ducked down behind a car and breathed in deeply through his mouth and not his nose. “That’s a fucking troll.” He told Preston with wide eyes.

“It’s a Supermutant.” Preston corrected plainly, not understanding the distinction, or his point. It was big, green, stinking and dumber than snot. That spelt troll in his book. Apparently, these bastards also ground your bones into dust too, so he was sticking with the damn analogy.

“Never mind.” Jack muttered and bobbed his head up again, the damn things had taken over the parking lot and were taking pot shots at travellers, including the caravans that supplied Sanctuary, which meant that they really needed to go, but seeing them now, Jack was a bit concerned the combat rifle he’d bought with him wouldn’t penetrate the thick hides.  
“Ugly bastards aren’t they?” he quipped, taking in one through his scope, right down to its hideously deformed face, bald head, and massively mutated body that made it look like a cross between the Incredible Hulk and a Wrestler.

“Strong too.” Preston replied, looking down his own musket scope. “They’ll tear your arms and legs off and use your torso as a pillow. Then they’ll eat you.”

“Thanks, great use of imagery there.” Jack muttered. “What is it with everything out here wanting to eat me?” he griped, huffing. “So have they got any weaknesses?”

“Bullets, lots and lots of them.” Preston replied, “Into the chest and the head. They regenerate so don’t waste ammo on them if it ain’t a kill shot.”

“Good to know.” Jack held a three count. “Let’s go do this then.”

All in all, it went pretty well, if a horrifying skirmish against a regenerating sadistic bunch of opponents with a rage problem that made Bruce Banner look calm, could be said to go well. It was his first proper battle since the disaster with the Ghouls. These things weren’t rotting flesh sacks, but it was still a little too satisfying to see the dumb looks on their faces when he and Preston sniped them from afar. Right up until they almost got a missile up their asses.

“Forget to mention they liked the heavy weapons?” Jack hissed as a minigun exploded over head, peppering the metal wall they were cowered behind with an ungodly amount of noise. Jack popped the pin on the frag grenade and tossed it back over the wall in the direction of the sound. He scored a lucky hit to be honest, there was an oil barrel that went up like a damn rocket and took out most of the top half of the parking lot. He and Preston stared out from their covered position as the whole thing seemed to come down around the ears to the roars of the Supermutant’s. The dust cleared and Preston followed him as he took out his shotgun and started coldly executing anything that was still breathing inside. 

They stood in the wreckage surrounded by green skinned body parts and weapons, and yet somehow Jack was chalking that up as a good day… yeah, this place was getting to him he decided as he retrieved a rocket launcher from a corpse with something approaching glee.

It was a good story to embellish for the boys and girls back at camp. Particularly as they’d come bearing all sorts of new goodies. Sturgess in particular seemed to have a beef with Supermutants, much like Jun had with the Ghouls. Seems everyone had their own little private horror survival story out here. Preston’s was a bunch of military-type Raiders that called themselves the Gunners who fancied themselves some sort of private army, with loose morals and worse ambitions. They swapped horror stories over the campfire that night, to Jack it seemed like he’d broken down a wall he hadn’t been aware existed, but apparently them loosing that round with the Ghouls had made them more approachable, more real. They had failings too apparently, which made them worthy of shared losses and hurts. Jack felt for them, all of them, each story was harrowing and he knew he was only getting the clip notes. But in it all, he was clear that survival was the aim. If you survived, you did good. 

“Sam, you must have an old war story you can share with us?” Sturgess asked, plonking himself down next to her and already Jack could see he wasn’t about to let her wheedle out of this. In fact, there was a piqued interest from most of the group for their most reserved member. 

“Yeah.” Marcie drawled in her rasp. “What was it like on the Synth production line?” She snorted at her own joke and every eye turned to her but Sam’s, promising to shut her up if she didn’t shut up. Marcie had a bee in her bonnet about Sam since the start, despite their denials and the fact that she’d almost died god knows how many times fixing this damn place up, it never seemed enough to convince the woman. She was too hung up on the way Sam looked… and how good she was with tech. Ain’t natural. Was what she’d mutter and shake her head whenever Sam came near. Jealousy more like it Jack thought. It was starting to make Jack twitch with the need to do something about it.   
“Oh come on, everyone’s thinking it. She’s a god damn Synth how are you all okay with that?”

Sam’s head shot up and she pinned Marcie with a dark look that promised she’d do something herself if she carried on.

Mama Murphy gave an exasperated sigh. “Now Marcie… you ain’t ought to be looking a gift horse in the mouth. And she ain’t no Synth.” She rasped at the other woman who looked away hastily. Like most people, Ol’ Mama freaked her the hell out.  
“Sammy.” Mama turned her almost milky eyes on her using a sing song nickname he hadn’t heard from anyone in a long time. God maybe not since Urgo which was all kinds of disturbing.  
“Why don’t you tell Marcie dear, just why you hate machines that look like men?”

Sam opened her mouth to protest then shut it sharply and Jack winced. Ouch, nothing like having your deepest and darkest dragged out over a campfire.  
“And why you hate the number Five.” Sam’s entire body shivered and she gave Mama Murphy a look that screamed murder.

“I’m not so sure that story is campfire material.” Jack growled, coming to her aid. Mama shot a milky white eye on him. 

“Then why do ya wanna hear it so bad?” Mama Murphy saw right through him and he winced. Ah. Right playing chicken with a psychic, bad idea.

Sam tossed a stick at the fire and made it flare up a moment startling everyone but Mama Murphy back onto her.

“Fine. I’m not a damn Synth.” She snapped. “But I was kidnapped by one once.” Sam started quietly. “His name was Fifth.” She shuddered and he watched her lips press into a thin line, but her eyes, they were fixed hard on Marcie. If this woman wanted to know how much of a Synth Sam wasn’t, it looked like she was about to get the motherload of emotional unspooling. Damn it.

“And Fifth hated me. I don’t know how well he could feel human emotions, but he felt that one just fine. He hated me because I used him, like I use any machine, like a tool. Except I was cruel about it, he had what he thought were feelings towards me, I manipulated those feelings into getting him to help us destroy a group of Synth’s like him.” She expertly weaved the narrative of the replicators into the Synth’s and Jack tried not to think about how easily it worked.   
“They were terrorists. They would have hurt so many people… I gained his trust then I betrayed him and they all died. Or so I thought.” She drifted off for a moment, kicking at the dirt with her toe and not looking at anyone as they sat in silence… waiting for the kicker.

“I gave the order Sam… that was on me.” He cut in, because he couldn’t not. All eyes swivelled to him. Sam didn’t look at him though, her eyes back on the fire.

“And I followed that order, that was on me.” She snapped back, clearly not wanting to be coddled or accept his own guilt on that.   
“Besides it was me he’d trusted not you. It was me he hated. Not you.” She replied flatly and Jack swallowed. Hate was a powerful emotion, he dreaded to think what Fifth’s hate had done to her, he’d not been tortured by someone that hated him. He’d been fortunate he supposed in that respect, everyone who’d tortured him couldn’t have given a shit about him, he’d practically been beneath their notice. He felt something cold as ice in his veins. He wasn’t certain he wanted to hear this anymore. He after all was the one that had blocked the psyche team when they’d suggested a full evaluation on her, telling them she was ‘fine’ as was clear in her report… he was wondering if he’d made a monumental mistake. Yet another one concerning Sam, because of the simple fact that he’d not wanted to lose her from his frontline and he hadn’t wanted to derail her career with a bad eval. She’d never get her own command if she was struggling with PTSD. Not that she’d shown any signs… until now.

“He kidnapped me and he kept me in a small room with no doors, no windows, no light, no escape.” She continued sliding the small details into the expected narrative. “I didn’t know how long I was there… it felt like months, but it turns out it was only days. But he had this tech.” She simplified and touched her forehead.   
“He put it to my forehead and he could reach into my mind.” Jack kept his eyes fixed on her, admiring even in her clear distress her ability to adapt the story for their needs.   
“He wanted me to suffer. To feel everything he’d felt, when he’d been trapped for years.” Sam looked back up at Marcie and the woman flinched at the raw pain she saw there.   
“He pushed nightmares into my mind, horrific images, things I’d never seen or experienced suddenly were mine. I could feel everything, every scenario from those stolen memories.” She took an inhale, and he heard the shake and he wondered for a moment with growing dread where it was Fifth had gotten other people’s memories, wondered right up until she looked at him. Looked at him like she knew the inside of an Iraqi prison cell. Like she knew where each of Ba’al’s blades had landed. He looked away because he couldn’t meet that stare as his hands shook and his chest pounded. His memories. His nightmares had been used to torment her. Suddenly his list of reasons to want that son-of-a-bitch Fifth alive so he could kill again grew exponentially. There was a lot of ugly in his psyche and each and everyone of those ‘By the Numbers Human-form Replicators’ had taken a stroll through his head. There were things he’d never wish on his worst enemy… never Sam, God not her.

“But he grew bored of that… that’s when he started breaking my own memories.” Sam continued sounding far away, lost in her own horror.   
“He liked creating new ones. They were like waking dreams, he’d force me to kill everyone that meant something to me. Sometimes he’d corrupt old memories, like my mom’s funeral, my God the things he made my father say to me.” She blinked and swiped a tear…  
“He liked to break my memory of you most Jack…” He looked up to find her staring at a point somewhere over his shoulder.   
“I can’t tell you how many times he had me kill you.” Their eyes met and there was a shadow in her face now which he knew would haunt him and he considered telling her to stop, this was a private conversation if ever he’d felt one. He wondered what else the damn bastard had made her experience with his face…. Damn it! He’d not considered this form of torture, he’d just thought they could show you memories, not manipulate them. Suddenly his foolish attempt to protect her from the psych’s was starting to look a lot more selfish, a lot more like he had let his personal feelings get in the way of what was right for her. She’d needed help and damn it, he’d denied her it. Hadn’t even seen it. What the hell kind of CO was he, that he couldn’t see one of his own, hell the woman he claimed to love, was suffering.  
“I tried to convince him that being human if that’s what he wanted, was about having forgiveness. Compassion.” She almost spat the word. “The asshole told me he knew, but that he wasn’t there yet.” She let out a bark of a laugh, her fingers on the centre of her forehead again as she turned her gaze back on Marcie, the woman had the sense to shift uncomfortably and Jack glared at her coldly aware of Mama Murphy watching him with concern and he knew the old cow could hear his deep-dark quite clearly right now.  
“I begged him to stop. I got down on my goddamn knees and I begged him.” Her fingers were at her forehead again. “And he did… in a way. He stopped trying to break me, he decided I was ready then, that I was finally worthy of his love.” She closed her eyes and looked like she was going to be sick. Jack felt the same. Fuck what had she been doing in the field… suddenly that whole incident with Repli-Carter was looking a lot more complicated than he’d believed and it hadn’t exactly written up simply then.  
“You see, turns out he hated me so much, because he thought he loved me. He wanted to keep me… now that I’d suffered for my betrayal, now that I understood his pain.” Sarcasm dripped from her words.   
“So he made me see a fantasy world, his attempt to play house with me, he gave me everything he thought I wanted. But it wasn’t enough…” Sam looked at the faces around her, but not his and he had a horrified thought that the bastard had made her see him… what if her resistance to them had more to do with what Fifth had shown her, than just her inability to let go of hope and duty here?  
“I wasn’t convinced.” Sam’s eyes found Marcie’s and her lips twisted into a sneer. “Because no matter what he liked to pretend, he wasn’t human, and he couldn’t understand a damn thing about my fantasies. About what I wanted. It was like he’d painted a technicolour version of ‘this is not your life’.” She stared flatly at the woman that had dragged this confession out of her and Marcie shrank back.   
“Because they are not human. They don’t feel like we do. And when they try… it makes them into monsters.” She bit out, her words ringing across them all.

“How’d you get out?” Sturgess asked quietly, probably the only one that could have spoken right now, as he sat quietly unjudgementally next to her, his own unpleasant experiences with Synth’s he’d shared early on, resonating.

Sam shook her head and sniffed. “I didn’t.” She replied. “He’d have kept me there, in misery forever, his. Like a bird in a cage.” She tossed another stick onto the fire. “But Jack…and our team, they were creating merry hell amongst his little group. Turns out Jack had found this new weapon that could tear through them. Suddenly we were a threat. And keeping me was looking like a bad prospect.” She snorted. “He made me believe for a moment, that he was letting me go, because he loved me. Because he knew I’d never love him back.” She looked like she hated herself for that and it hurt Jack to see it, to see her self-loathing. But with hind-sight, he supposed she was right.

“He let you go because he’d got what he needed.” Jack replied quietly filling in the pregnant gap and feeling like a schmuck. Her I’m fine’s ringing in his ears. They were the same I’m fine’s he’d used after Iraq, after Ba’al… the one he hadn’t quite mustered after Charlie. The ‘I’m fine’ that you practiced in the mirror until you started to damn well believe it, even if you never met your own damn eyes.

“He took everything,” she admitted stiffly, “he’d gotten in my mind and used it to make himself his perfect version of me. A synth version. A blow-up fucking doll he could abuse some more.” Sam spat and stared at Marcie as Jack smashed his beer bottle in fury on the ground getting up and stalking away scrubbing his hands through his hair aggressively.   
“Except that bitch wasn’t me.” Her voice carried, not sparing him the rest of the narrative even as he sorely wished he could clamp his hands over his ears. God he was jackass.   
“She might have looked like me, had my memories. But she wasn’t me.” Sam rasped. “Because machines…Synth’s aren’t human. They can’t feel, only copy what they see.” He eyes drifted to Codsworth for a moment and Jack glanced back wondering if the robot was taking offence. He remained silent, and Jack recalled her little impassioned speech about AIs and robots… apparently Codsy she was fine with, because he wasn’t pretending to be human.   
“The only thing I’d ever really shown him was hate and pain. So his perfect me hated him almost as much as she hated the whole damn world.” He listened from the edge of the camp, trying to get his breathing under control. He was going to kill Fifth, he was going to get back to their planet and fucking resurrect the little prick and take him apart block by fucking block. And to think, he’d stood there in front of him, all smug in his fucking grey shiny suit and ridiculous hair and made his threats… and he’d just let him walk back to where he’d trapped her inside that goddamn room suffering his mental torture. He’d left her behind. Even if it was for minutes… hours, he’d let that prick go slip back into her mind again. 

He heard Sam stand, he turned watching her out of the corner of her eye as she stood to tower over Marcie, her blond hair glowing like a halo making her look like a damn avenging angel. Marcie at least looked faintly terrified, which made Jack feel a little better, the cow wouldn’t be making anymore Synth’s cracks again.  
“You don’t know me Marcie. But I’m not a fucking Synth.” She spat and Marcie nodded, as Sam leant in close to the other woman. “So the next time you compare me to one of those soulless things because you don’t like my face… I’m going to programme my sentry bot to dislike your damn face.” She smiled thinly, her eyes dancing with unshed tears and a fair bit of promised malice.   
“Have a good night.” She muttered smiling thinly as she stalked off away from camp… and away from them all. Including him. 

Preston ambled up to him, not saying anything, but still somehow saying a lot. 

“She’ll be fine.” Jack told him, not sure now who he was wanting to convince, realising even as he said it, that was the damn word that had got them into this mess ‘fine’. Preston nodded, looking like he wasn’t so sure.

“Will you be…?” He questioned quietly, “I’m thinking you hadn’t exactly been aware of some of what had gone down there?” He asked, as astute as ever. Jack shook his head.

“She’d said she was fine. I hadn’t pressed… I should have pressed.” He bit out in self-recrimination as he scuffed his boot in the floor. Jack watched as Marcie got off and slinked away, tears on her cheeks… so there was that at least. He supposed he should be grateful to the bitch for finally forcing Sam to talk about the whole fucking thing. For waking him up to it because he’d done a damn fine impression of an ostrich on that one.

“I’m not sure pressing her would have helped.” Preston muttered, looking genuinely unsettled by what had been said, which Jack noted. Apparently fire fights were one thing but headfucks were just as unpleasant out here in the Wastes.   
“From what I just heard, Synth tortured her for days… inside and out. Pressing her seems to me like it just makes that shell harder. Sam’s like coal I reckon.” Preston told him and Jack raised a querying eyebrow not getting the reference.   
“Apply enough pressure, she’ll harden straight into diamond. All shiny and perfect on the outside, but the inside, well that’ll always be coal and coal’s real easy to chip layers off.” Preston stared at him and patted him on the arm consoling.   
“Secrets have a way of coming out, specially out here. Old wounds play up. This was a wound Jack and it needed excising or it was just gonna rot inside her, and no one was getting through that shell, not until she was good and ready for it.”

Jack gave him a stare. “Your doing that wise old preacher thing I’ve warned you about.” He muttered, man loved to preach, Jack was starting to suspect he’d missed his calling.

“I just say it like I see it man.” Preston patted him on the shoulder giving it a squeeze. “Wounds open, nasties out. Now it can heal. Seems simple enough to me.”

Jack nodded. He supposed put like that, although he found mental trauma never did tend to fit into a nice neat box, there didn’t tend to be a band aid big enough in his experience.

The night having ended on a sour note, he decided to go sit up on the roof and wallow a little in his hidey-lookout hole that he’d kept adding to. Now it had morphed into a shack on top of the main house with one wall, a barrier which made it semi-private and kept him protected from incoming fire. A half a tin roof, his mattress – the one he’d dragged all the way up from the damn vault on account of his back – and a reclining chair that didn’t recline any more. But hell it beat sharing a floor with the grunts. He placed the little lamp down beside him and considered unearthing that pack of cigarettes again. His fingers twitching, they might be able to cure radiation damage, but cancer still seemed a bother and it wasn’t a habit he especially wanted to get back into.

So he focused on the other hobby that had always occupied his mind, the night was clear and as he lay back he could stare up at the not so familiar night sky. The little glow of light put out by the oil lantern he’d bought up so he could see his own feet and didn’t go tumbling off the edge, not disturbing the view at all. Every time he came up here noticed something different, or odd about it, aside from what was missing, there were also areas where he definitely saw more clusters of lights. 

The sound of someone climbing the ladder alerted him and he waited, there were literally only two people that would come up here and he’d already finished his conversation with one of them. He avoided looking, knowing the sound of her footsteps as she approached.

“Hey.” Sam announced herself quietly, a good habit given that out here most things that snuck up on him tended to get shot.

“Hey.” He replied, staring up at the stars from his position until she appeared in his eyeline, she turned her head to glance up at what he was looking at.

“Mars is brighter.” She commented after a few silent moments.

“Yep.” He replied. “Big dippers all wrong too.” He pointed out, what he was certain she’d already spotted. 

“Can I join you?” She asked and he moved over slightly to give her room on the mattress beside him, by way of invitation.

They lay there for a little while, just looking up at the stars. Occasionally one of them would point out something that was different. The warmth of her body beside him started to become distracting and Jack sighed and reached down, sliding his hand along her arm until her found her hand and laced his fingers with hers. He wasn’t entirely sure when it was he’d felt okay to do that, but it felt natural now, like her hand was an extension of his, except his he skin didn’t buzz from the contact with his own hand…

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something I found out.” She admitted quietly and he raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?” he pressed wondering what fresh hell this was going to be.

“I have a theory as to why the stars look like that.” She admitted. He turned to stare at her, but she kept looking up and he stared at her profile, the soft planes of her jaw, the long lines of her nose. 

“I was going with Apocalypse Universe.” He muttered. “Given as so many stars have gone out.”

Sam sighed. “Maybe.” She paused, not entirely dismissing his theory which was disturbing on its own. “But I think, that it’s because the Goa’uld don’t exist, not as we know them in this Universe.” She glanced at him for a moment letting that little bomb go off in his brain.   
“Maybe they never existed, or they stayed in the Unas. We know they encountered some advanced alien civilisation maybe even a single alien that landed on their planet. Given how much else is different in this universe that one act would be relatively simple to have had change. The consequence though, is an entire Goa’uld civilisation gone and Earth and the human race was never enslaved.”

Jack frowned, “Wouldn’t that you know, add stars?” He questioned sure he was missing something.

Sam shook her head. “The Goa’uld have probably created more worlds and made them human compatible than they’ve destroyed. They are pretty much the reason that our Galaxy was seeded with human life.” She explained.

“I thought the Ancients did that?” Jack queried now even more confused.

Sam shook her head. “We know they seeded Earth, maybe a handful of other advanced planets with the DNA. But that’s it. The rest were populated by the slaves of the Goa’uld.”

“You’re getting all this from the fact that the stars look different?” He questioned not meaning to doubt her but that was a leap, even for her.

Sam shrugged. “That… and according to Codsworth and the databanks at the Atomics Galleria, the Ancient Egyptians never build the pyramids here. In fact, there are no documented pyramids on this world at any point in their history, not even the Myans.” She told him with finality.

Jack blinked, something coming to him. “Pyramids as landing pads for alien spaceships!” He snapped his fingers pleased at the recall. Daniel’s whole hypothesis and the reason he’d been declared a whack job by most of the scientific community. Sam looked at him pointedly, asking him to make the leap from that with her.  
“Ah.” He replied. “I get it. No pyramids, no landing pads… ergo, no aliens.”

She shrugged. “It’s a theory.”

“Or… maybe they made square-holed ships…. Or circles!” He pointed out clutching at straws and not certain why he was so keen to hang onto the idea of the Goa’uld.

Sam nodded as if she’d considered that, which she probably had knowing her. “The Ancient Egyptians of this World didn’t use hieroglyphs either. That language as far as I can see is gone, and we know at least that was from the Goa’uld.”

“So… your telling me that these idiots blew themselves up, all by themselves, they never had to face what we did and they wasted it?” He barked, realising what it was that was bothering him about that notion after all.

“Yep. I know, it sucks.” Sam muttered. “Maybe it was our very conflict with a race like the Goa’uld that prevented us from destroying ourselves, we had bigger problems.” She countered and he frowned.

“I am not thanking those snakeheads… or giving them credit for that. I like my idea of Apocalypse Universe better.” He groused. Crossing his arms over his chest and drawing her hand up to hold it there before he really realised what he was doing. Then he had no choice but to go with it.  
“Okay.” He considered after a moment. “So how’d the stargate get here?” He pointed out. “Unless I’m imagining the damn thing we stepped through?”

Sam smiled her lips curving as she looked over at him, clearly pleased he’d spotted what she’d considered the obvious question. “That’s the thing that’s been bugging me. Not the how, I mean it seems obvious that the gate we came through had to be a gate that the Ancient’s left here.” She added offhandedly and he nodded, ‘oh’.   
“What’s bugging me is, how there could be a second gate? If the Goa’uld are gone, then they never put one here. Which would mean if there were two, both would have to have been put here by the Ancient’s.” 

“I’m not seeing the issue?” Jack replied, playing with her hand, stroking his fingers along her almost absentmindedly until he caught her staring at it and he stilled the movement.

“It’s not an issue, I just thought you should know that we’ve just gone from a chance in hell, to a snowballs chance in hell of finding a second gate in Antarctica.” She replied coolly. “And if we did get off the planet, the chances of finding a world hospitable to human life is remote. We have no idea what the state of play is up there and we have no allies. And all that is assuming I could even find a supercomputer capable of calculating the interstellar drift to make the gate system work again.”

“Oh.” He replied, surprised that she was stilling holding onto hope of finding something, he’d thought she’d given up.  
“Sam… remind me when you look all quiet and thoughtful that what’s going on in your head is probably some next level stuff and I should just leave you to it.” He sighed and she chuckled.

“I’m sorry.” She replied. “Apparently I’m not so good at letting go of things.” She replied quietly. “You should appreciate that though, it’s why I never really gave up on the idea of us. Even half way down the isle with another man.”

Jack stilled. Well that wasn’t nothing. He turned to look at her and she turned her head to face him too.

“Jack can you understand, that I just need to keep tossing snowballs every now and then, to see if something sticks… or I’ll go mad.” She explained looking uneasy that it would be some sort of dealbreaker for him.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Sure, if that’s what you need.” He wondered where that left them. He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. “You okay?” he asked gently.

Sam blinked slowly and looked back up at the starry night sky. “About the world view or about what happened by the campfire?” Sam replied her tone a little clipped.

“Whichever.” He replied lacing his fingers with hers again and lifting it to his lips and pressing a kiss there gently to the back of it. “You know I’m here to talk… if you want to. About… any of it.” It pained him to offer that, the last thing he wanted to do was unearth more, but he wanted her to be okay, wanted them to be okay, so he’d take whatever awkward conversations that required.

“I shouldn’t have exploded at Marcie like that. I apologised.” She admitted. “Before I came up here.”

“Bet that went down well.” Jack muttered and Sam chuckled.

“Oh, she was quite gracious really. Told me to get out of her face.” Sam added, “But she didn’t whisper Synth bitch under her breath at me for once, which was a plus.”

“Silver linings.” Jack reasoned. Falling quiet again. 

“Did you want to talk about it?” She offered and he winced.

“Yes… and no. And hell no.” He added with feeling, there was a pregnant pause. “Which means I suppose we should.” He admitted uneasily.

“Probably.” Sam replied, then rolled onto her side, sliding her hand out of his and using it to prop herself under head as she stared at him and placed a tentative hand on his arm, gently stroking the revealed skin of his bicep.

“I wish you’d told me what he did to you.” He started, because she’d already shared enough tonight, he figured it was his turn as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his arm mirroring her position.

Sam nodded. “Never seemed the right time. Then that Replicator version of me showed up and things got messy and, anything I said after that would feel… like I was making excuses.” 

“Excuses?” his eyes widened and he felt a distinct flash of annoyance at her. “Sam, that bastard raped you…” her eyes widened. “You don’t think sticking his hands inside your head and futzing with your memories and your fantasies isn’t rape? It’s mind-rape!” He exclaimed, furious.

Sam looked down at his arm, her fingers stilling for a moment and he wondered if he’d been a bit too full on then, but he sensed the time for pussy footing around this damn issue had passed when she’d screamed it at an entire campsite of their live-in neighbours.

“Sometimes I used to worry that maybe, I hadn’t gotten out, that I was still there. The way it happened, him just letting me go, you alive and well, with a fancy new anti-replicator gun kicking the crap out of him. I just… it stretched credulity. Then you got promoted… I just kept waiting for that moment when it would feel ‘unreal’ again.” She admitted. “Then I worried that maybe he’d gotten better at it, maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Maybe he figured that this new ‘fantasy’ of my life back as it was would be enough.” She bit her lip.   
“I’m screwed up you do realise that?” She shook her head. “When we got here, those thoughts came back a little. Maybe it was shock, or just how unreal this whole place felt, like our world but not…” She trailed off chewing on her lip. “I kept thinking that this was it, this was the moment that he’d reveal himself. But he didn’t. And then after a little while, I realised that this place was so unendingly bleak that it could only be real. Fifth had the emotional control of a toddler, he might eventually have had the creativity for a place like this, but not the patience… or the finesse.”

Jack shook his head absorbing that. She really had no business being in the field if she was having a disconnect from reality for fuck sake. Questioning if she’d even been rescued? “Carter…Sam,” he realised his slip, but his head was back in ‘you were her damn CO you should have noticed’ mode. “You realise this type of thing really should have been in your report.” He told her feeling dirty all over for suggesting it, but seriously… why was it she’d decided to break a habit of a lifetime and not record everything in minute detail in there?

“Because I was ashamed.” She replied simply. “He broke me Jack at least in part.” She added “I’ve never begged like that, not even Sokar.” She admitted. “I just wanted him out of my head so badly.” She rubbed her forehead with the hand he wasn’t holding prisoner tracing his fingers along her knuckles as if to remind himself she was here. “After that his damn fantasy was almost… tame. I used to think he didn’t realise, that if he’d just kept diving into my mind like that and terrorising me with nightmares, that I’d have done anything he wanted. That he’d been an idiot to try his fantasy tack, because that had been to easy to resist.” She looked up at him and he felt his heart break at the pain he saw there, the knowledge that someone had pushed you to your limit.  
“Then I saw what he’d done to her, the Replicator version of me. He tore her mind apart to get her to comply. He didn’t misunderstand anything… he’d just known he’d break my fragile human mind if he kept at it and he couldn’t copy a broken mind.” He squeezed her hand.  
“I’m sorry, I should have put it in the report, but the things he did, and said, they were so personal. I didn’t want that laid bare. And I didn’t want to be taken off active duty, I needed to work, to get over it.” She confessed and what could he say, he wasn’t the picture of sanity either, and he’d been guilty of playing a little fast and loose with the rules on reports too. 

“Sam, you just got to trust me on this, because I have a little experience in this area of particular self-loathing.” He swallowed and she looked up at him, her blue eyes shining in the lamplight with unshed tears.   
“He only broke you if you didn’t get back up after. Which you did, so damn well that no one noticed… which is shitty of us, but speaks kinda to your strength you realise.”

“I appreciate that.” She acknowledged, “But I don’t know how fixed I am.” She looked away again. “You know I still have the nightmares, and when things get hard I still question reality.” Her fingers rose to her forehead and she caught the action, stopping it halfway and squeezing her hand into a fist to lay back under her chin.   
“But I guess when everything out here is one long horror show that makes the things he put inside my head pretty much pale in comparison… seems kind of pointless to have PTSD about it.” She sounded oddly okay with that, resigned and Jack had no idea how to respond, because that’s how fucked up that statement was. So of course, he blundered on with what probably wasn’t the most tactful question, but he needed to know and he needed to say it now before he lost his nerve.

“Was it me…?” She frowned at his question and he took a breath. “Was it me he made you see, in that fucked up little homemaker fantasy.” He looked at her nervously. “Did he pretend to be me?” He asked the question that had been worrying him the most. Because he wasn’t sure how the hell to get them through a mind-twist like that.

Sam’s eyes shot to his realising his fears. “No! God no Jack… he, I told you, he gave me what he thought I wanted.” She replied and it took him a moment to consider that before the lightbulb went off. 

“Pete… he pretended to be Pete?” He asked in something like relief, which was a little inappropriate considering her crestfallen look. No wonder she’d been thinking the poor sucker the damn ring back. Especially if she kept worrying about reality slipping, Pete must have felt like all kinds of wrong to her.

Sam nodded and looked back down hastily, this time he could see the pinched expression as she struggled to push her emotions down about that. “Yeah, Pete…” She winced. “He also conjured a dog, a farm, horses, white picket fence, beautiful kitchen… hell I even had the long un-Airforce hair.” She admitted quietly, her finger trailing the slightly longer shoulder length version now. “And I hated it the place. Every moment of it felt wrong, every detail off. He kissed me… and I felt nothing, worse I felt… repelled. It felt like the fantasy I had as a little girl, that didn’t match who I was now, I mean, maybe it was who I thought I should be, I don’t know.” She trailed off looking faintly ill. “The whole time it was like I was asking myself what the hell was missing.” She added. 

“What do you think was missing?” He asked and she looked at him, scrutinising his face with a soft look on hers.

“You really need me to spell it out for you?” She smiled gently and pulled her hand from his to brush his cheek. His mouth opened and he made an ‘O’ of mild surprise. Right. He felt a smile flicker onto his lips despite the disturbing topic.  
“If he’d have shown me a fantasy of you Jack, in your damn flannel shirt and scruffy beard, your cabin by the lake without any fish in it… maybe a little motorboat to complete the illusion, the smell of charred BBQ, I’d have believed.” She smiled wistfully, “Damn it I’d still be there. With him. Because that’s what I want!” She admitted and he felt his breath catch. He met her eyes and she leant in pressing her lips to his featherlight as if she didn’t quite trust herself, with just enough pressure to let him know he wasn’t imagining it before she pulled back.

It was the first time she’d kissed him. Not the other way around, every other kiss between them he had instigated he realised and he revelled in it for a moment, trying to bring his soaring blood pressure back under control, as his heart beat a little wilder. He had to be sure, after all of all the opportune moments since they got stuck here and he’d made his intentions clear. Her deciding now, at the tail end of this frankly disturbing conversation hadn’t been how he thought they’d reach this point. And if he was honest there was still a lot of guilt laying heavy in his chest about his role in what happened to her. 

“Sam… you’ve got to know how sorry I am. I’ve been a shitty CO to you, I should have insisted on a psyche eval, of getting you help to deal with that crap, you should have felt like you could come to me with it.” He ran his hand across his brow in distraction, “Hell I should have been a better friend, I should have known you weren’t fine. And… well I have no idea how to apologise for the shit I suspect he put in your head from my memory.”

Sam shook her head. “It’s in the past. I’ll admit I was annoyed that no one seemed to notice, or seemingly care what happened at first. But I realised a lot of that was my fault, I didn’t ask for help, I didn’t tell the truth in my report. I just wanted it to go away so I did what I always do, I buried it in work and distraction.” She huffed at herself a little.   
“And it did do go away, until that bitch came through the gate looking like me and making a mockery of everything I went through with him. Because it was all for nothing because he got what he wanted. His perfect Carter. And it damn well killed him and I was actually a little happy about that, which sort of freaked me out for a while.” She admitted and he thought that was a perfectly rational thing to feel. Hell, he’d have danced on Ba’al’s corpse had the opportunity arisen.

“You should be mad at me. I gave the order to betray Fifth.” He insisted not willing to absolve himself just yet.

“And I made you take Kanan.” She countered. He inhaled sharply. Touché. 

“Okay, so what we just call it even? You feel as guilty as I do that we both got each other horribly tortured. But we’re alive, so c'est la vie?” He sighed, seriously what the hell was he doing contemplating a relationship with a woman when they had this level of shit between them.   
“You realise you and I are kind of ridiculous right.” He rolled his eyes at her as he slid his hand back to twin with hers, their fingers linking together.

“Insane.” She countered with a smile.

“There’s going to be no secrets you realise, no mystery.” He added with huff of exasperation that he wasn’t even convincing himself with, her kiss was setting something light and airy off in his chest. “All my deep-dark and nasty is literally in your head!” He added half-heartedly one last time, giving her one last chance to back out.

Sam squeezed his hand. “And you were with me or saving me from most of my deep-dark. I reckon we’re good.” Okay she had a point as always. Screw it, she was Carter, he didn’t care he’d take a roll with this particular series of punches any day. Besides he figured they were as sure as they were ever going to get.

“So… I’m still your fantasy guy huh?” He teased lowering his voice a fraction and stroking a single finger down her arm and brushing her hair off her shoulder. Sam tracked his movement with her eyes as her lips curved into something wicked. Then her mouth was on his again, hard and fast this time, any tentativeness from her earlier kiss had vanished as she gripped his chin and held him there for a moment as she nipped his lip just hard enough to warn. Minx.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” She teased.

“Too late.” He smirked and glanced down at his crotch to emphasise his point and she grinned back at him that big toothy one that lit up her eyes and Jack felt his heart soar. That was it, that was the look he needed to be sure. He captured her face in his hands and drew her in for a longer kiss this time, pressing his chest down into hers and trapping her beneath him as he revelled in the feeling of her smile as she kissed him back. They both became a little hesitant, exploring each other gently and she leant back. 

“l won’t change my mind.” She promised working out even if he hadn’t where the hesitancy was coming from.

“Good.” He muttered and kissed her again, her lips parted and he groaned at the touch of her tongue to his as he let his weight sink over hers as he lost himself in the feel of her beneath him and the taste of her. His hands brushed through her hair that was getting longer now as he tucked it behind her ears, giving him a path down her neck and she pressed her lips to his cheek as he trailed kisses to her pulse point. He desperately wanted to believe her, but there was a flicker of doubt and maybe he was doubting his own sanity and reality. He didn’t deserve Sam and it had taken the end of the World for him to finally stand a chance… what did that say? 

Her hand rose to the back of his head and she drew him back up to look at her.  
“We’ve wasted so much time Jack. I don’t want to waste anymore. I just want you.” She promised him drawing his mouth inches from hers until they almost brushed as she spoke. “I should have been braver with this, with us a long time ago.” She confessed. 

“Your plenty brave.” He murmured against her lips, his eyes boring into hers, this moment fragile as he fought not to break it and push her away, but every instinct in him was demanding he end this ridiculous limbo they’d placed themselves in. “I’m the coward.” He told her. 

“You were being honourable.” She replied her thumb brushing his lips as she looked up at him suddenly with something close to adoration and Jack’s heart beat wildly. This was it. This was their moment. This was Sam. His Sam.   
“I thought I’d lost my chance with you. And I got desperate.” She admitted. 

“Never.” He shook his head, “Never.” He swore and pressed a kiss to her throat, almost moaning at the intimacy of his lips there, touching them to her pulse and feeling it as fast as his own. He was trying to calm down, to calm himself and his reaction, to not make a mistake with her now, but then she tugged him more firmly over her until she was pressed chest to chest beneath him. Then it became difficult to do anything rational with the desire he could feel building between them. They’d made a hot mess of this whole damn thing for years. He had to get it right now but he could barely think with the feel of her against him. His dick hard and cutting off any rationale thought. Stop thinking. He willed himself.

“I could never love anyone like I love you.” She told him quietly staring up at him her hand splayed over his chest another buried in his hair, her hips cradling him as she wrapped her legs around his waist. And there she went proving him right again, the braver of the two to finally speak those three little words that he needed to hear before he could confess to having felt them himself for what felt like an eternity. Oh he’d danced around it, told her a dozen different ways already, but he couldn’t just say it like that, she needed to break the damn door down to that room they’d decided to shut it all in or he was always going to wonder if he’d forced her into this. A relationship of circumstance, nothing more…

The confession broke through any lingering doubts and fears he had, he was just a man after all and he had Samantha Carter wrapped around him, under a starry sky, confessing she loved him. He caught her face in his hands swooping down and kissing her again, properly this time kissing the woman he loved, not the woman he was concerned might be suffering from mental trauma, or who might decide he was the horrible mistake 8 years in the making. He hoped he’d actually be able to speak those words back to her. 

Their tongues met again and he groaned, deep and long sending the sound reverberating through her and he didn’t have to coax into any form of reciprocation she was right there with him. God he'd waited for this. Waited and hoped and given up a dozen times. But here it was, now, at the ass end of everything and it was his, if he just didn't screw it up. 

He kissed her like he'd imagined he would every day for 8 years. Her mouth as perfect as he imagined the rest of her would be as she threated her fingers in his hair, holding him close; as they tried to put into one kiss, everything they'd not said in the years they'd longed too. She broke the kiss, because he sure as shit wasn't about to again. Pulling back softly, her forehead against his as he remembered how to breathe. Her thumb brushed up across his lips and she laughed gently a wonderful sound that only widened the smile he knew she was tracing on his lips. God only Samantha Carter could make him smile, genuinely giddy as a teenager perched on a shack roof to avoid all manner of nasty at the end of the world.

He kissed her to banish any thought of that bastard Fifth, pressing the reality of this and them, into her. Because there was no way she couldn’t feel every second of the four years since they’d agreed to keep all of this locked up in that damn room. Tender turned into something more frantic as he pressed his hips into her watching as her breath hitched and her eyes darkened as she lifted her hips to meet him, chasing the sensations of each other with every contact. 

“I don’t think that’s your side arm this time.” Sam rasped up at him and he grinned enjoying the call back as he grinned rakishly back at her. God, if he could go back and tell his half dead frost bitten self that he’d get to do that for real one day… 

She laughed gently at what he knew would be his dark look as he pressed his hardness a little more firmly into her as he tried not to shiver at the brush of her lips against his throat and the heat of her breath. He waited a beat before sliding his foot along her calf and curling his free hand around her waist pressing them closer, tension and almost anticipation seemed to pull taut between them. Her head raised and he watched as her breathing hitched, her gaze dropping to his lips for a moment as though she was having to remind herself that she could kiss him. 

Staring into the face of this woman was becoming a habit. One he was more than happy to take up. His fingers trailed down from her face to her throat, and her shoulders, his thumbs brushing her skin as he could feel her pulse hammering beneath his touch. Her hands slid up to the back of his neck and stroking over his scalp as she gripped his longer than usual hair.

“Jack.” She whispered against his hair and he raised his head, searing her with a look he hoped conveyed everything he was desperate to tell her, to show her. It was both a question and permission from her he realised with a jolt that he felt straight to his navel. Oh. 

He captured her mouth moaned into her and feeling the sound travel down her throat as she tightened her grip on his hair. Slowly he kissed her, savouring the touch of her lips, the feel of her chest crushed against his and thanking her silently for every perfect inch of her he could feel. Perhaps there should have been a frenzy, he’d often thought if they were to ever give in to this attraction that it would be fireworks. And it was, but they had a long fuse apparently. Mostly what he felt was relief. His whole body sagged into her, her mouth his sanctuary as he felt her caressing him with the same kind of devotion and utter preoccupation. She wanted this. Wanted him. 

His breathing was growing heavy, his entire body tingling, but his lips felt like they were burning wherever they touched her skin.  
“God Carter.” He hummed, pressing another tender kiss to the corner of her mouth and down again to her neck. “I could do that forever.” He promised. “Eight years and I still never imagined it right.” He sighed, curling his hands around her back he dropped one of his hands to her waist, keeping her close as he stroked his thumb across her jaw.

“I know.” She sounded confident but her voice held the shake he wanted, telling him she was just as affected. She ran a fingernail down the back of his neck and he shuddered against her, just holding her there as she flexed the long gorgeous legs around his hips as her arms looped around him. She pressed a kiss to his throat and he tried not to groan deeply again, feeling the ripples of it straight down to his groin. God what she did to him…

He kissed her again until his tongue ached and his lips felt swollen. Kissed her until breath became a problem and his fingers began to round her ass, desperate almost now to pull her closer. She obliged, her grip on his shoulders tightened as he circled her ass cheeks and instinctively, they lifted her together until he was rocking directly against her centre. He considered that maybe on a roof top barely concealed from anyone that chose to look and certainly in earshot wasn’t exactly his idea of privacy for this moment, but right now, he didn’t much care. It was the safest they were going to get and he couldn’t wait another minute feeling the heat of her pressed against his now raging hardness.

“Damn.” He exclaimed, “God damn it Sam….” He hissed out and kissed her again. He didn’t need to explain his exclamation to her, he felt the answering heat in her renewed kisses, like the spark had been lit as she cradled him against her warmth, her grip on his hair becoming tight as she pinned him to her, her hand snaking to his own ass and grasping a fistful that had him groaning deeply. This was heaven he realised. In this woman’s arms. This was his reward for saving the damn planet… this was all he needed, this made it all worth it.   
“Your perfect… you realise that?” He gasped, sucking on her bottom lip. 

“Cute.” She smirked, ducking her head and stroking his stubbled jaw. 

“Yeah you’re that too.” He groaned, “So goddamn cute…” He squeezed her ass before realising he could do better and snuck his hands down the back of her pants until he was able to grasp the bare skin of her ass and take a firm globe in each, coming around to liking the lack of underwear out here. She bucked upwards in clear delight as her mouth parted and she sucked long and hard on his tongue, right then the friction of his own leather pants against him was almost too much. He would be damned if after all this god damn time wanting to be inside her, he was going to jizz in his pants when she was inches from him. Fortunately, she seemed to be feeling the same level of urgency as he was and her hands were working feverishly at his pants.

He caught her eye as she struggled with the damn things and he laughed lightly at the ridiculousness as she smirked back up at him.

“Shut up fly boy and help me get your pants off.” She hissed, her hands slid into the front as she got them down around his hips and he forgot how to do much of anything other than try his darndest not to embarrass himself. Her long slightly rough engineer’s fingers wrapped around him and he grunted, oh God that felt good and he closed his eyes for a moment at the sensation as her warm palm held him tightly, learning his shape and length. He braced himself with his hand on the mattress beside her head as she stroked him firmly and he squeezed the hand still cupping her ass in time with her movements.

“Jesus… 8 years… 8 long, hard years Sam.” He hissed, stilling her movements and suppressing her chuckle at his fully intended pun with a swift kiss. “And this is going to be over in 8 seconds if you keep that up.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled it off him with regret. She slid her hands back to the task of his pants and together they managed to get them far enough off that he could kick them away. He dropped his head to her stomach and pressed a kiss there. She gasped at the feel of his lips and he slid his hands along her hips and slowly started to unpeel her own pants them until she was lifting her hips and he was sliding them down her thighs with more care than either of them had shown his. His hands traced the path of revealed skin and his lips kissed just above the blonde thatch of hair suddenly in front of him. 

“I promise you I will worship you.” He muttered, pressing a kiss to it that had her making a strangled sound and bucking up, he pulled back smirking as he pressed kisses up her stomach and along her ribs before he whipped her top up over her head. He was foiled slightly by the expected sight of her glorious breasts, only to find the damn bandage was wrapped around them firmly. He made short work of it, getting it half undone before he gave up and dropped a kiss to the covered skin.   
“And I will definitely worship these.” He rasped brushing the still covered mounds with his thumbs. “But right now… I just…” He looked up at her almost apologetically slotting his hips over hers as he tried to slow down and utterly failed as his hands seemed to slide all over her skin barely knowing what he wanted to touch first, he just needed her… this, now.

“I know.” She arched her hips up against him and let her legs wrap around his waist her eyes sparking with understanding and with the same longing, as the tension they’d built up for years grew heavy between them again. He could feel it tugging at his damn chest, making his skin alert with her closeness, her smell seeping into his skin as his eyes drank in the sight that was finally, wholly for him. His mouth went dry as he confirmed his suspicions, she was fucking perfect.  
“We’ve waited long enough.” She rasped dropping her hand back to his length. “I just need you.” She admitted and gently guided him to her centre until he was just on the edge, the heat of her tormenting his sensitive head and making him twitch with imagined bliss. He didn’t need further encouragement, as he let his arms take the weight and he leant forward, letting her guide him as he flexed his hips and slid into her, one glorious inch at a time. 

“Jesus.” He managed to get out, closing his eyes at the sheer ecstasy that was her clutching slick heat. “Sam… God Sam.” He groaned and bent his head to catch her mouth, inhaling the gasping sound she made as he bottomed out in her. It shouldn’t feel so God damn right inside someone else’s body he mused. 

They didn’t speak after that, he wasn’t sure if that was because they had no need, or because they were both struck dumb at the feel of each other. He reached up and cradled her face with one hand, letting his other slide down her side, tracing the curve of her body as he began to move inside her, one long hard thrust after another. Sam’s lips parted and he pressed his own over them for a moment, swallowing the groan and the sounds she made as he moved inside her. He didn’t want to miss a thing, not a single syllable of pleasure from her lips because of him. He let his hand brush through the coarse hair between them until he was cupping her. He wasn’t going to last long, not with Sam… and his fingers well he knew enough women that had thought them magic.

“Do you need?” He asked, touching the sensitive little nub he could feel beneath his fingertips. Her nod was emphatic as she threw her head back and bit her lip. Which was forever going to remind him of this moment whenever he saw her make that familiar little gesture. With his touch he felt the change in her movements the hitch and the break in their rhythm as he circled her clit furiously. Her pelvis raised and he focused hard on not coming himself just yet, willing his body to let her reach her climax first as he slid almost out and back in again and again, angling himself towards her pelvis. But he was fighting a losing battle with his rhythm as her arms wound around his back, dropping her hands to his ass and guiding him, harder, deeper, so he went with hers. 

“That’s it.” She panted and he nodded, burying his head in her neck and nipping the skin there. A shudder ran down her and he could feel the way her muscles were fluttering her hips faltering. She was close, he could read her body well enough it seemed. 

He let his tongue flick out over her ear as he let his low rumble of a voice wash over her.   
“I want you to come for me Samantha.” She let out a gasp and the shudder happened again and he grinned against her skin, his breath coming out in sharp bursts with the effort as she pulled him in closer and he pistoned his hips that little bit harder.   
“Come on baby.” He rasped working his other hand under those damn bandages to finally curve around a breast they were so soft, he squeezed and brushed promising himself he was coming back to these. She arched up into his touch her mouth falling open and her breath seemed to falter as her eyes clenched shut. Her hands tightened and he brushed his thumb harshly over that little nub between her legs and wrapped his lips around a freed nipple that pearled under his attention as he sucked hard. She came around him suddenly and he barked out a sound of his own release as she clamped down hard and damn near milked him for all he was worth. Her legs trembled and she clung so hard to his ass he was going to have Sam’s fingernail impressions left there. He spent himself inside her trembling body as he cradled her beneath him, trying not to crush her as he sank down in relief, his limbs shaking slightly from the exertion… and the release. 

They lay there, entwined and panting, he hadn’t quite found enough strength in his aching knees and trembling arms to roll off her yet. He could still feel his damn pants caught somewhere over his ankles and he glanced down in dismay and realised with his t-shirt still on he’d not even been properly naked. Hell, he still had his damn boots on. 

Sam was smiling beneath him naked and glorious her clothes in a haphazard pile around them, including her boots she’d clearly kicked off he noted, impressed, as she pressed her hand over his chest whilst he considered shimmying himself back into his clothes, but decided the effort in that moment would be too great and dropped his head to her chest for a long moment, enjoying the soft length of her beneath him. 

“So that happened!” She laughed gently, her eyes sparking and her face flushed in the meagre light provided by the oil lantern.

“Oh yeah.” he managed feeling a little drunk with giddiness as he reached out and slid his hand to hold her hips gently. Her hands raked through his hair and she pulled his head up to press an open-mouthed kiss against his lips. The kiss broke naturally and he slipped from her, stroking her cheek and taking her chin in his thumb and forefinger so he could admire the way Sam looked like this, happy and spent beneath him. 

Except her eyes were still dancing with desire and he realised she wasn’t even remotely done with him. She was going to kill him… he was in his damn 50s, although it was a better way to go than pretty much any other option that had ever presented itself he reasoned. Her hand curled around his hair and she kissed him hard and fast. Her leg wrapped up around him, and he was clearly in a post sex fog, because he didn’t immediately recognise the manoeuvre until she had flipped their positions and sat above him straddling his waist and looking smug.

She wasted no time and he lay there almost helpless as her hands went to his sides and she wrestled his shirt up and over his head. Then her hands were on him, on his skin and he felt his eyes shut for a moment just at the sheer wonder of it. Sam Carter was straddling his hips naked and touching his skin with rapt attention. He opened his eyes onto her watching the concentrated expression on her face as she traced her fingertips over his abdomen, enjoying the way his somewhat taut abdominals from all this hard-manual labour had given him as they twitched under her touch.

“You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this.” Sam murmured, her hand tracing his happy trail and he groaned reflexively as she followed the path to his hips for a moment. Then her fingers began an entirely new exploration, she found the bullet wounds on his body, the knife marks, the burns, every single blemish she was soothing her fingers over. Most of them he realised she knew… others, he watched her face as she attempted to work out what had caused it. His body was a patchwork of war and a life in service. There were wounds missing thanks to the damn sarcophagus and she found them with unerring accuracy a little frown crossing her face as she traced the burn that was but wasn’t over his heart, reminding him that she’d seen what had been done to him with Ba’al thanks to Fifth.

“Your beautiful.” She told him quietly, biting her lip as she touched his shoulder, there was no scar there but it seemed like she was intently looking for one. It took him a moment to realise why as it wasn’t one of Ba’als. This was earlier… much earlier, back to a time when a futuristic time-capsule had skewered him and left him pinned, dangling from the wall as alien bacteria colonised his damn brain.

“No trauma remember. It healed me.” He reminded, reaching up to touch her hand as she brushed his skin.

“This one was my fault.” She admitted softly and he looked up surprised, he wasn’t quite sure how she figured that. “I made you take it.” She explained. “Then I caused it to activate. Then I made it damn near kill you with my damn plan to free you.” She lowered her head and pressed a kiss to the unmarked skin just above his chest.   
“I thought I’d killed you.” She admitted barely above a whisper her eyes met his and he saw a deeper pain than he thought the event merited and he wondered at it.   
“That was the first time I knew that I was in trouble with you, because all I could think was ‘not you’, ‘anyone but you’.” She confessed to his surprise, he hadn’t known that, never would have guessed.   
“I held off the solution until it was almost too late, because I wasn’t sure if you’d survive it.” She looked down at him then.

His fingers brushed up and touched the small scar on her abdomen she’d gotten from a cell mate when they’d regressed, after she’d all but thrown herself at him in the locker room.   
“I punched out Daniel after this you know, when he was just that bit ‘too’ concerned.” He admitted quietly, “Because primitive or not… I knew what I wanted, who I wanted.” He offered, letting her know he’d been just as affected by her even back then.

Sam covered his hand with hers, then lifted it gently across her skin, asking him to explore her. He sat up, sliding her legs firmly around his waist and slotting her there like she belonged. They fit perfectly he realised quietly with a surge of desire that lit up deep in his belly and his dick flared to life again. He glanced down in mild surprise, that hadn’t happened so quickly in a few years. Considering he’d been concerned he might embarrass himself in her hand a few minutes ago, he was especially pleased.

Her lips parted in what he thought was delighted surprise as she felt him between her thighs, which he was mildly affronted by. Her lips curved into a smile.   
“Really…?” She asked a little ‘too’ coyly as she ran her hands along the hairs on the back of his neck, taking an ear lobe in her mouth and sucking it gently as he wrapped his arms around her. 

“Advanced human remember… superior genetics.” He grinned a little smugly and she responded by swotting his chest with an annoyed chuckle.

“Nothing to do with me then?” She pouted. 

He sighed, trying to ignore the little party in his pants at the idea that maybe he wasn’t too decrepit just yet, for his still thirty-something, hotter than hell partner.   
“Oh trust me it’s got everything to do with you Sam, and that kissable mouth,” he pulled her chest against his, enjoying the soft warmth there as he kissed her, “wicked tongue,” he nipped at it, “delicious breasts,” he palmed them softly as he swept his hands over her body, “gorgeous hips,” he gripped her there, tilting himself just so that she could feel what it was she did to him again “and these divine, long, long legs,” he groaned as he swept a hand along the sheer toned length of them.

“No mention of my ass?” She teased, grabbing one of his hands and placing it there.

“Your ass is… unmentionable.” He growled into her shoulder pressing a kiss there, squeezing a handful. 

“God your corny.” She smirked tugging his head up and pressing a kiss to his chin. 

“Guilty as charged.” He sighed, “But you know, don’t go telling anyone, ruins my gruff General’s mystique.”

Her hand slipped between them and he inhaled sharply as she encircled him again. 

“So, this is where all those advanced Ancient genes of yours went.” She rasped against his lips wickedly and he bit down on his own lip for a moment as he opened his eyes onto hers with a flash, watching as she smirked with satisfaction at the reaction she was causing. All the while stroking him long and firm as he bucked slowly into her hand, coming back to life at her determined touch.   
“This and your ass.” She flirted and he took mild offence, he could still feel her grip on his ass from earlier and he knew had he a mirror he’d have seen little moon shaped crescents marking him. 

“I thought you liked my pretty face too?” He groaned as she squeezed the head of his dick with just a little more pressure, learning what he liked quickly, with a few quick gestures and then a slow one now they weren’t in the heat of the moment, until he was growing long and hard at her insistence, his balls ached slightly at the reminder he’d recently used them.

“I like all of you.” She admitted softly, her expression unbelievably tender given as what she was doing and it left him with a light feeling in his chest. He’d not expected to have anyone look at him like that again.

He dropped his head to her neck and groaned into her skin at the smell and the sense of her there. This was heaven he decided once more. The Apocalypse beyond this little Sanctuary they’d developed could go fuck itself because he had everything he needed right here in his arms at last. He let his head duck lower until he could take one taut pink nipple in his mouth with a sigh as his other hand found the other one. His brain short circuited for a moment as he was finally able to appreciate the fact that his hands and mouth were on Sam’s breasts. The breasts that had tormented and aroused him for years, breasts that felt gloriously soft and heavy. One pearling nipple resting on his tongue he focused on teasing it to tautness loving the way her breath hitched in response. She threw her head back exposing the long column of her throat and Jack focused on the sounds she was making, he wanted to hear them all again, find new ones he could have her make.

He dropped one hand to her thigh as she sat across his lap and lifted her leg up his hip a little opening her wider. He took his time tracing his fingers over the revealed flesh before an impatient huff from her drew his head up and he kept his eyes on her as he slid his fingers down, brushing her thighs and then her outer lips. Her mouth parted and her eyes held his, widening as she let out a sharp exhale as he stroked her, her fingers falling slack around his own stiffness with distraction. That was the look he wanted to remember, the look the first time he touched her like this properly, when he could take his time, learn exactly what she liked, where, how hard, his fingers itched to make it part of his muscle memory.

“Do you know how many times I thought about this when I was lying across from you in a tent.” He murmured, stroking and rubbing her intently as she gasped at both the words and the touch. 

“Probably about as often I as did.” She groaned as he circled her clit. It was small and liked a bit of heavier attention he’d noted earlier, and he swiped his thumb back and forth over it now, drawing it out. Even here she was a tease he realised… but then he and his blue balls had known that for years about the good Doctor-Captain. God that first meeting still made his stomach clench with the flash of arousal. Maybe there wasn’t love at first sight but there was definitely ‘lust at first sight’ and he’d imagined a thousand ways of putting his ‘outside reproductive organ into her inside ones’.   
“Did you ever touch yourself?” She gasped as he dipped one finger inside her for the first time, her eyes closed as she shuddered around him and he started playing with her breast with his free hand, tracing a path with his tongue around the other nipple.

“No… Colonel, I was on duty.” He growled in indignation he had been her CO for crying out loud. He bit gently on the fleshy underside of the breast he’d been giving attention making her let out an almost squeak which he really enjoyed.   
“But let’s just say I may not have made it out of the base showers before having to… de-stress once or twice.” He confessed.

She laughed lightly, her hand coming up to the back of his head and playing with the small hairs on the base of his skull again which he realised he really liked, but she sounded pleased rather than freaked out by his lecherous behaviour. Although he noticed she didn’t make a similar confession, clearly she was better at impulse control of the two of them. He added a second finger and she let out a sound as close to a groan as he’d heard her make yet and he grinned around her nipple. He looked up to see the way her mouth parted as she arched her hips closer into him, seeking out more. She caught his mouth again and kissed him as he added a third.

“Oh god.” She gasped and he pressed a kiss to her temple. “I used to imagine your hands… your fingers on me.” She confessed panting around them now. 

He nodded. “Really?” He focused on them now, pushing as far in as he could and cupping her as he did so, trying to angle it just right as he worked out just where it was that she needed him. She let out a soft cry as he got something right and clutched at her own hair, pulling it roughly as if she liked the tension and he filed that little fact away for later. He kept up the pressure of his thumb alternating between the sweeping caress and the heel of his hand as he increased the pace. Her rocking movements sending friction straight into his dick which was almost weeping now with the need to be exactly where his fingers were. He wanted her to come like this he realised. But she was fighting it.

“Please… Jack,” her hand was reaching down for him and he knew what she wanted, but he wanted this more. 

“It’s okay,” he soothed, “Just let me do this for you.” He pressed his forehead against hers, he wanted to do this for him too, she might have imagined his hands on her, but he most definitely had. His fingers were slick when he picked up the pace, her eyes fluttering and her hips starting to buck against his hand. It didn’t take long and he filed away that fact   
about her too. Her eyes opened just as she came and he gripped onto her ass tightly with one hand as he pushed her through it as she gasped and threw her head back. God she was as perfect in that moment as he’d imagined as she shuddered over him, her legs trembling faintly around his hips, her mouth wide open and panting with only the barest groan to give her away, as a blush of red travelled down from her neck to her chest that he followed with rapt attention as she exposed the long column of her throat. Rocking on his lap, he took that as an invitation and he worried the skin on her throat with his teeth, not quite hard enough to mark but enough to make her clutch at his shoulders as she gasped and clenched around his fingers.

“Jack.” She rasped and he smirked, he could stand to hear her say his name like that again and again. She leant back panting an eager smile on her lips that promised he wasn’t nearly done as she reached for him again with renewed fervour, her hands loosely around his neck.

“One day we’ll do this somewhere more private… you know with a door… walls.” He promised as he trailed his hands up and down her bare back tracing the spine until he settled them over her hips as he rocked her gently against him. 

She chuckled, looking amused. “Oh wow Jack… you really know how to spoil a girl.”

“Oh yeah, five-star accommodation.” He rasped, lifting her hips slightly and shifting her back enough that his near painfully hard dick could slide into her with ease as she rocked over him. Her hiss of pleasure as he bumped her pelvis and sensitive clit she let her head fall back and she stared up at the sky. 

“It looks like a lot more than Five stars to me.” She gasped and he let his head fall back too, to take in what she was seeing. And he smiled wildly because he was making love to Samantha Carter on a rooftop under a starry sky. 

They took their time, in no rush as they clung to each other, hands exploring skin that had been forbidden for too damn long, tracing scars and smooth skin that wasn’t always that way and scars that never were. His mouth covered hers and they learnt to breathe together. He came with a shudder her name spilling from his lips as they rocked and he gasped at the feel of her hands over his face swallowing the sound as she kept on kissing him like she was afraid it might be the last time she’d get the chance.

“Thank you.” He murmured against her lips, then stroked her cheek, tilting her head to press a kiss to her temple; because honestly, he couldn’t remember ever being more grateful than he was in that moment. 

“I knew you’d be worth the wait.” She replied, dropping her head onto his shoulder. “That we’d be worth the wait.” He smiled and reached up and cradled her cheeks.

“Yeah?” He pressed a kiss to her nose.

“Yeah.” She grinned, shifting so that he slipped out of her and she rocked back off his aching legs and he tried not to groan in relief. She laughed lightly, her eyes glinting at him and he could take comfort in the knowledge that she was happy, that he’d made her happy. She reached around him and grabbed the blanket he kept up here tucked under the shelter.

“Mind if I bunk with you?” She posed, like somehow Samantha Carter wanting to share a bed… possibly naked, wasn’t totally a gift.

“I do mind actually, your frankly completely unappealing as a bed mate.” He quipped and she swatted him, as she wrapped the blanket around her and dropped back onto the pallet with the big Vault mattress they’d just thoroughly christened. She smirked and lifted the blanket indicating he should get under with her.

“Is this you generously offering to share my bed with me.” He growled crawling towards her and slipping under taking the opportunity to press her back into the mattress for a moment. 

“Shut up and roll over fly boy, you have the best mattress, probably on the continent at this rate.” She ordered and he complied because… yeah. He lay back, putting one hand behind his head as she snuggled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around her.  
“This okay?” She asked gently, sounding slightly nervous now and he thought he understood, they were suddenly breaching an entirely new form of intimacy. No matter how many times they’d curled up together since being here, this time was different, sleeping together after sleeping together. Although he thought it was ironic that she was the one asking that. He grinned and pressed a kiss to the top of her blonde head, holding her closer and settling in.

“I dunno you going to steal the blanket…?” He teased, not sure why he was suddenly afraid of a tender moment, worried maybe that she’d think on it if they got too comfortable and decide this was all a terrible mistake.

Sam frowned and looked up at him. “What?”

“Nothin.” He shrugged, her expression said she knew otherwise. “You strike me as a blanket hog.” He deflected smirking down at her as she rolled her eyes at him, accepting his avoidance tactics that she knew only too well it seemed.

“Are you ever serious?” She huffed.

“Not if I can help it.” He replied glibly as she wrapped her arm around him and slid her legs along his making him another kind of blanket entirely which he wasn’t about to give up anytime soon.

“So, you’re a snuggler huh?” He grinned down at her, “I can live with that.” They lapsed into silence for a little while, neither of them seemed sure what to say now.

“Did this feel… real?” He asked gently when the question refused to stay down any longer despite his best efforts. She shifted against him and despite her closed lids he was certain she was still awake; he’d learnt the patterns of her breathing when asleep, sharing a tent in the silence off world somewhere. He didn’t want to break the moment, but he needed to be sure where her head was at, after everything she’d unloaded tonight. Again, he was hit with a flicker of concern that he’d taken advantage of her fragile emotional state, but she was a grown woman, and he couldn’t second guess her decisions not if they were truly going to be partners in this.

Her hand rubbed gently over his chest. “This is real.” She confirmed softly and he nodded.   
“And really intense.” She admitted and his eyebrows had knit themselves into a frown that she lifted her finger to soothe. “In a good way Jack. Very good.” She smiled and he felt relief flood him, making sure his former 2IC, who he’d just thoroughly obliterated the regs they used to live by, hadn’t decided this was all a dream in the dark of the night, hadn’t exactly been something he’d been handed a rule book for.   
She leant in and kissed him softly letting him return it before she raised her hand to stroke the lips she’d just claimed. “You have my permission to be justifiably smug if you want.” She replied, her thumb stroked his lips and he pressed a kiss to it.

“That’s good.” He cleared his throat, tamping down on the emotion he felt bubbling up out of his damn chest. “Wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint a lady, not having made her wait 8 years to get her hands on all this.” She giggled and he couldn’t stop smiling as he guided her head back to rest on the pillow of his arm.   
“Oy, we have a rule remember, no giggling.” She sighed and lifted her hand to brush across his chest in an easy pattern, content he hoped to feel the closeness they’d been holding back from all these years. 

It was almost perfect… except for you know… the end of the world outside this bubble.

“Go to sleep.” She mumbled against him and he snorted, she always had gone out like a light and didn't appreciate someone getting between her and shut eye once she'd decided to go. 

But sleep was evasive. If he was honest, this was not where he’d expected the day to take him as he’d looted a mutant troll-things corpse this morning. Hell, if Old Mama Murphy had told him he’d end the day with the taste of Sam on his lips, her confession of love ringing in his ears, her body wrapped around his… he’d have told her to go fuck herself. Because that was the culmination of his wants right there and he’d honestly started to doubt they’d ever get there. Especially not with what was apparently floating around her head. And yet, she was here, Sam in his bed, wrapped in his arms, wanting to be there. But he supposed one night didn’t a relationship-make, and there was still the morning after. So he kept his own declarations close to his chest. He’d told her, just not in so many words, but if this thing between them petered out, then he needed to be able to cobble something of his shattered heart, and probably his soul back together.

His sleep situation wasn’t helped any by the fact that the night air was sweltering, dead and oppressive without a breeze and he lay there naked beneath the blanket sweating and not inclined at all to move from the blonde heat source next to him. He recalled what Preston had told him about the last winter here in the Commonwealth, how they’d spent it shivering huddled together around fires at night to stay warm in drafty old buildings. They'd need to make things air tight by then if they were going to get by. But then, maybe they'd be in this Castle of Preston’s. He’d been talking about it all the way home from the Supermutant camp. Apparently there was this old Castle out on the East coast, defensible position, good strong walls it used to be the Minutemen’s HQ before something drove them out, it sounded good, so long as that something wasn’t still there, and it hadn't all crumbled to ruin of course. But he was also keenly aware that a place like that was designed not to need central heating, trapping warmth in the stone. Preston had made no bones about the fact that he wanted him to lead the charge. Take back the Castle… take back the Commonwealth. 

Jack sighed staring up at the stars here he was on an alternate future Earth, and apparently, he was still being pushed into being ‘The Man’. He'd always led people, now apparently right when he was thinking about retiring, he might need to lead in the worst way. Through hope and by example in a broken world where everyone probably should have just rolled over and died. But they didn't, they soldiered on, he could respect that. Admire it even. Heck he admired the hell out of Preston. The man had no formal training, not really, just a lifetime of war, which was enough in Jack's book, although his morality was a little too black and white for Jack's taste, he figured if they spent enough time together the guy might go off him in a big way when he worked out that Jack wasn't the type of General or soldier that hadn't gotten his hands dirty.

Then there was Sam, he stroked his hand down her arm, admiring the freckles he hadn’t let himself notice before. Taking Sam from these people would be a blow, but she’d done what was needed, she’d turned this place into a technological fortress as best she could, fresh water, strong defences. But as Marcie had proven… Sam didn’t fit in here. She was too beautiful, too brilliant, too something else, especially for suburbia… and most especially for the damn Wastes. He sighed. Was it wrong that the idea of holing up in a castle with her didn’t seem like the worst plan? Although he knew she’d murder him slowly if he suggested locking her in a tower… not that he thought she was some damsel, he just wanted her safe and out here that came with a hefty price tag. Sam was a gift to any settlement he reasoned, saving them one fixed piece of civilisation after another. He’d called her a light… his light. Maybe she was, but even he’d seen that light dim out here and he ran his hand over his mouth, feeling it dry. She’d left it up to him, he’d told her he wanted to make a go of the Minutemen and she’d essentially told him she’d follow that lead. Not because she had to anymore, but because she wanted to.

Lead. Why was everyone always looking to him for Leadership. He just… saw a problem and tried his darndest to fix it, that was his style of leadership. Problem was, when he looked around this world, all he saw were a whole bunch of things that needed fixing. Maybe that was it then, maybe it was time for a change, they’d done all they could here in Sanctuary, more than they’d promised at any rate. They’d made a community and a safe home for these people. And more and more people were coming every day to help them grow it, keep it.

If he was going to Lead the Minutemen, help these people have more than just ‘tomorrow’, then he couldn’t hide away here. He needed to be out there, in the thick of it, building an army of Minutemen, a community that could actually look out for each other across the Wastes. Hope. Damn that was a hell of word to hang on his head, but that’s what he was trying to fix now. These people were hopeless and that sat all kinds of wrong with him. He glanced down at the woman sleeping in his arms. He’d had his faith restored, his hope rewarded. He had to do right by her… as her CO, ex-CO, friend… lover, he had no idea what to call them, but it seemed deeper than some corny label. Of course she’d kick his ass out of the fine shape she seemed to like it in if she heard him talking about being ‘responsible’ for her, but he was. He always had been, sleeping with her just made him feel that more keenly. 

So yeah… he slid his hand behind his head and stared up at the stars. Okay. He could do this. Bring hope to the hopeless… spread a little love. Probably have to shoot a butt load of people and nasties to achieve it, but nothing worth doing was ever easy. A grin split his features momentarily, when he considered… who didn’t want their own Castle?


	9. Into the Wastes

[4 months after P4M-523]

In hindsight, maybe packing up and heading out to a Castle on the East coast when they had a nice cushy homestead all setup in Sanctuary might not have been the wisest decision he’d ever made. It was also a notion he wished he’d had a little earlier as he watched the group of pissed off Feral Ghouls they’d just woken up come charging at them. From his vantage point on top of the surprisingly well-preserved bus he had a real good view of them as they clawed their way out of the hidey-holes and lunged for Sam.

“Jesus Christ!” He hissed, and grabbed a hold of her by the back of her tac vest and dragged her bodily up onto the bus. She yelped but didn't protest as she tucked her feet in and away from the things trying to grab a chunk. With Sam safe, Jack’s eyes immediately went to Preston searching for him, but he was half way up a fire escape kicking at the bastards following, apparently the man was a sprinter.

Ghouls. He was really starting to hate these bastards. A shudder went through him as he recalled their almost unpleasant ends the last time they’d encountered these evil bastards and he tried to focus and keep his head in the game. They had to survive this round too.

“Zombies Carter... why the fuck don't we call these damn things what they are… Zombies!” He snarled. “I am so not going out like those poor bastards in the woods did, nobody is going to damn well EAT ME!” He bellowed that last bit down at the group of them as they clawed up at him and he kicked one dumb enough to stick its head up through the roof hatch, until his foot went straight through with a squelch and it stopped coming. Sam had her pistol out and with a precision born of a lifetime at a range was picking off head shots whilst he bodily kept the ones too close for comfort off them with his shotgun. 

It wasn’t like that time in the forest. There they’d been unprepared, surrounded by trees and fog with no clear line of sight, hardly any light and had been facing near enough a horde of the blighters. This time they had the high-ground, a clear view and really pissed off intent. This was payback he realised grimly as he and Sam put bullets in their heads with ruthless efficiency and they went down like the bags of bones they knew all too well they were. 

Preston let out a shout and Sam refocused to take out the ones on him whilst Jack downed two in one with an exuberant shout that was more out of adrenalin than any real enjoyment of seeing the shrunken blank eyed monsters up close and personal. The sound of growling and clawing stopped and he felt like he'd gone deaf for a moment as he considered that they may have actually survived. Again. 

He glanced at Sam who was crouched down looking pale. “Zombies are generally slow Jack. These things are fast remember?” Sam reminded needlessly, looking a little shell shocked herself from her quick travel up the side of a bus at his hands. But she didn’t need to remind him of anything, his knees still remembered all too well how fast they were when they were damn well chasing you. He caught her eye, and she nodded, she was okay. He reached out and squeezed her leg reassuringly.

“Well headshots are still the way to go.” He muttered. “Nice to see that classic hasn’t been futzed with.” He sat back on his heels for a moment, catching his breath and willing his heart rate to calm.

Sam nodded, looking a little pale and her hands had started to shake he noted as she knelt down next to him to catch her breath as he reached out to cover one with his, letting her sag gently against him as they took a moment.   
“Show me something a headshot doesn't work on… other than one of Anubis Supersoldiers.” She quipped finally and then glanced over at Preston and called out to him to check if he was doing okay. He gave her a shaky thumbs up.

“Nice shooting!” Preston exclaimed, slowly making his way down from his impressive dash up the ladders.

“Nice running.” Jack snipped back. The guy had pretty much left them in the dirt back there.

Preston shrugged. “Hey you had the high ground and the sharpshooter, I was looking like a Salisbury steak to those things, hell yes I was running!” He reached the bus and held out a hand to help them down, Carter grasped it dropping down beside him as Jack took a slightly less 'knee jostling' route, sliding down the bonnet.

“So,” Jack rubbed his hands together, ignoring the slight tremor in his own, dismissing it as adrenalin. “I vote we avoid swarms of Ghouls. Seriously those things just took about ten years off my life. How the hell do they just pop up like that?” Twice now they’d managed to get the drop on him. He risked a look at Preston and didn't see quite the same level of fear, adrenalin maybe, but more resigned. And he'd thought he was one tough 'SOB', man they bred them tough out here!

“You get used to it.” Preston explained. “Or you die and don’t much care.” He added quietly. “But you’ve seen them, their relentless, a pack of ghouls like this small group could clear out an entire Supermutant camp, they're like locusts, or a hurricane or something. A force of nature, you just gotta get out of their way.” Preston admitted. 

Sam toed a body looking faintly queasy. “This isn’t a force of nature, there’s nothing natural about them.” She corrected talking more to herself than them but Jack caught Preston's eye as he slid up behind her and placed his hand gently against her back, offering his support and whatever comfort he could.   
“These were people once Jack. The original people from this World and they've been stuck in this living hell for nearly 200 years slowly liquifying inside, resorting to eating everyone else.” She turned away and buried her head in Jack's shoulder. He didn't think about it, that was how he dealt, but Sam never did seem to have that luxury. 

“Which is why we put them out of their misery.” He consoled. She knew as well as he did that there was no curing these ex-people. She nodded resolutely and seemed to give herself a mental shake, holstering her pistol and shouldering the rifle slung over her chest as they carried on up the damn apocalypse brick road, off to see the ‘Emerald City’. 

Apparently in order to get to this promised Castle of Preston’s there was a whole lot of Wasteland to traverse and since they were going that way, a stop off to recruit and refuel in Diamond City was on the cards or the ‘Great Green Jewel’ of the Commonwealth as Mama Murphy had helpfully supplied. Jack preferred Emerald City, but he’d been outvoted.

Jack suspected a part of this was also Preston’s way of making up for having diverted them from Diamond City the first time they’d met. They never had made it back that way again. No time like the present he supposed and he was kind of looking forward to seeing the stadium again which was where this Wasteland City had apparently sprung up. 

“You do realise that I’m voluntarily going to the home of the Red Sox… Grandpa O’Neill would spin in his grave.”

“I thought it was the Red Stockings?” Preston queried and Jack pulled up short. Sam gave him a look and rolled her eyes, he heard her non-verbal ‘if you ruin our backstory over baseball I’ll shoot you’, loud and clear.

“Sure… much better name for those pretentious bunch of assholes.” He grinned delighted by that.

“Take it you weren’t from Boston?” Preston chuckled, and came to walk alongside him, apparently he was a baseball fan… who knew.

“Nope Chicago originally, the Windy City. But I grew up in Minnesota. Then spent more years than I’d care in Colorado… mostly underground, which is probably the best place to be in Colorado.” He added with a grin as he poked fun at Cheyenne Mountain.

Preston frowned, the historical references mostly going over his head. “So what was your baseball team called?” He pressed as Jack picked up the pace a bit in time with Sam who had stopped and was fiddling with her Pip-Boy on her wrist, spinning it around like she was triangulating something.

“Minnesota Twins.” Jack smiled, baseball had always been a fond memory, mostly because it tended to involve Charlie. “Back when I was frozen we were slated to win the Division that year, bummed I missed it to be honest.” Jack admitted, technically that was true but on a parallel Earth in 2005, not that Preston would know or be able to check anyway….   
“My kid and I used to play… he did Little League.” He trailed off, wincing as he   
wondered if he’d just opened up a barrage of questions about Charlie he didn’t want to answer.

“Bit of a violent game that for a kid isn’t it?” Preston looked faintly alarmed, but had tactfully brushed over the ‘kid’ issue, or simply not registered it as an issue at all compared to his clear issue with the game itself.   
Jack gave him a confused look. The one that Preston had quickly realised meant there was some kind of cultural gap.   
“Baseball’s the one with the bats right, where you bludgeon the other team to  
death?” Preston queried looking at him like he was more nuts than he already suspected.

Jack blinked and Sam barked out a laugh and hastily stifled it and turned back to her Pip-Boy as though Preston hadn’t just besmirched America’s greatest pass time.   
“What!?” Jack hissed. “No. It’s where you hit a ball around a field shaped like a diamond and try to score points.” He gave Preston a thousand-yard stare. “Don’t tell me we’re going to the home of the Red Sox and no one there has a clue how to actually play baseball.” Preston shrugged helplessly. 

Jack rounded on Sam looking beseechingly at her. “I’m not playing baseball with you.” Sam muttered as he opened his mouth to ask the question. “I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of drunken idiots in the city to oblige you in resurrecting a game apparently no one has missed in 200 years.” She bit out dripping sarcasm and wearing a shit eating grin.

“Ouch.” He pressed his hand over his chest. “That actually hurts. See Baseball is dead. Now I know it’s the end of the World.” He deadpanned feeling slightly depressed by that idea.

“Golf too if we’re really lucky.” Sam smiled brightly at him trying to lighten the moment and clearly finding it amusing despite him, but damn that was cold.

“Still got fishing though!” Jack added just as brightly and she rolled her eyes good naturedly. He knew he’d have bought her around to fishing eventually if he’d managed to drag her out there with him. Although if he was honest actual ‘fishing’ with her in his cabin had been fairly low down on the priority list. Right now it would be rock bottom.

“Don’t remind me.” Sam muttered with a shudder. “Although I’ll admit its slightly more interesting now that the fish really bite.” She quipped and he wagged his finger at her in admonishment at her snark. God he loved that smart mouth of hers.

“You two sure you’re not married?” Preston cut in suddenly, pausing his internal musing’s as to what he was going to do with that smart mouth; clearly the guy had been watching their exchange avidly.

“Yep.” Jack replied, “We still like each other too much for that.”

Sam buried her smirk as she looked down to fiddle with her Pip-Boy again wisely choosing not to comment when a crackling a sound suddenly cut through the air which he recognised as a radio signal. They’d picked up a few frequencies now and again back in Sanctuary but nothing that she could get a fix on. Until now apparently as what was distinctly a voice… a man’s voice, singing a jaunty little number came out of the speakers he hadn’t realised were on her fancy arm device.

“Atom bomb baby little atom bomb  
I want her in my wigwam.  
She's just the way I want her to be  
A million times hotter than TNT.”

Jack turned and looked at her, whipping off his sunglasses so she got the full glare. “Sam… what the hell is that?” He growled wishing he’d not heard that irritating little ditty of an ear worm as he felt it reverberating around his skull and digging in, in a way he knew meant he’d be humming it for days.

“Diamond City Radio!” Preston exclaimed clapping his hands with a clearly delighted grin. “Best radio station in Boston… possibly the Commonwealth.”

The irritating barely pubescent voice broke over the speakers again. “That’s Atom Bomb Baby, by the…erm… yeah the Five Stars, right there. And next up we have…erm… one minute.”

Jack gave Preston a 1000-yard stare. “That’s the best radio station you got out here?” Preston was still grinning. “I’m thinking there wasn’t a lot of choice, am I right?” He snarked.

“That’s Travis, radio DJ. Last guy was better, but kids okay.” Perston laughed at him, “Not your music style General?” He quipped with a lazy grin. “I’d have thought that would be all the rage when you were born, that’s like a 1950s classic.” He yanked his chain and Jack felt his eyebrows hit his hairline and Sam stifled a laugh which was completely at his expense. Hell actually Preston wasn’t that far off on the year, but as far as he knew he and Sam were frozen down in the vault a good Century after that, which meant he’d been going for insulting… punk.

“If that’s what you call music son, then shoot me now.” He told him with complete sincerity, really embracing his old man grouch.

Sam pointed her gun at him. “You sure? Seems a bit of a waste, but you know if you insist.” She gave him a shit eating grin and winked. Her finger on the safety. Safety first of course, even in a Wasteland.

“Cute.” He snapped at her and reached out grabbing the gun off her sharply and dragging that same hand into him bodily so he could kiss her soundly. “This smart mouth’s going to get you in trouble… Colonel.” He rasped, kissing her again and ignoring the way their mouths were curved into matching smiles.

“Oh man you two… seriously, I think I preferred it when there was all that unresolved tension and uncomfortable silences you could cut with a knife.” Preston groaned, throwing up his arms in exasperation as Jack dipped her just like he had once before in the Command room and continued to kiss her thoroughly enough to steal the laughter until she was breathing heavily against him and clutching his neck. It was his turn to pull back smirking at the darkened look in her eyes as another song even worse than the last one came on, the voice all smooth and crooning this time. Like some 50’s retro-nightmare come to life.

“I don't want to set the world on fire  
I just want to start a flame in your heart.  
In my heart I have but one desire  
And that one is you, no other will do.”

Jack rolled his eyes and grabbed her by the waist. “This one maybe… maybe, you can dance to.” He muttered swinging her into his arms and doing just that, although at this tempo it was more of a sensual swaying. His hands sliding over as much of her as he could decently manage and still call it dancing. Sam grinned and curled her hands around his waist, taking a handful or two of his ass.

“Really… your gonna do that, right now?” Preston questioned shaking his head and when Sam slid her arms up around his neck and pressed her front to his. “You’re doing this to mess with me aren’t you.” Preston pouted. “This ain’t going in the Minutemen’s new manual, or maybe it is, as a cautionary tale about how to get shot fast by dancing in the damn road.” He griped stalking away to give them his back.

“Don’t be a spoilsport Preston.” Sam murmured, her lips against his as he swayed them, kissing him softly, they hadn’t had much time together since that first time and his hands itched to touch her constantly now he could. But Preston was right of course, it was insane dancing like this, but then the Minuteman had his rifle out covering their damn recklessness, blaring out music in the middle of the day in wide open space. But to hell with misery for a moment. He was going to dance with a beautiful woman, his beautiful woman.

The song faded out and was replaced by the whiny nasal voice of Travis stammering all over the airwaves, thoroughly ruining the mood as Jack regretfully released Sam, sliding his hand over her arms as he went, slow to give up the moment.

She reached up and stroked his face tenderly a look of something close to happiness on her face that he hadn’t dared imagine being able to put there… not here and not like that.  
“Come on flyboy. We go to keep moving, it’ll be dark soon and I’m not camping here.”

Jack sighed heavily. “You realise when we get to Diamond City I’m going to feed that guys microphone up his ass.”

Sam supressed a smirk and instead tried for diplomacy. “Why don’t we play nicely with the folks in the Big City Jack. Stick to teaching them baseball, make friends and influence people and all that.” She advised, knowing full well that was so not his strong suit.

“You know… I’ve heard that before, last time you said something like that to me we ended up in matching orange boiler suits calling ourselves Thera and Jonah as we worked ourselves to the bone.” He tutted and she looked faintly startled by the reminder of their former lives for a moment, or perhaps it was just the stark memory of their alternates and the ‘almost’ that had happened then. 

“We danced then too… do you remember?” She asked coyly and he grinned.

“Oh yeah, steam pipes and grime although I think that was more of a jig than a dance, to some very butch singing voices from the workers of Sector 7G.” He chuckled. “Line dancing… was their no level of depravity they didn’t inflict on those poor sods.” He shook his head in actual dismay. He’d not wanted to know he could apparently line dance.

“Don’t remind me, especially that hair cut they gave me… wasn’t our best look.” She laughed; he hadn’t minded the hair but he had to agree those outfits looked more like someone had taken some throw pillows and decided to make a bag out of them and call it clothing. Even she hadn’t been able to pull them off.

“I thought the rumpled pixie look was cute on you.” He admitted quirking his lips at her irritated look, but he distinctly remembered thinking that as both Jonah and Jack.

Preston was staring at them both his rifle over one shoulder his eyes narrowed as he tried to follow what Jack imagined was a clearly non-sensical conversation by anyone’s standards.   
“You know, if I hadn’t seen both of you bleed red, I’d swear you were both from another planet.” He gave them both and eyeroll and stalked off and Sam blinked clearly startled by that offhand comment, Jack coughed breaking the moment as he chose to ignore that. 

Their moment of light relief past quickly, and they were once again trudging through the dusty roads, hopping over burnt out shells of cars, buses, you name it, it was out here, some in better condition than others. The abandoned dilapidated prams he sometimes saw got him the most… especially if they had a doll or toy in there still. 

They passed two more towns that day infested with feral ghouls and by the last town Jack was about ready to demolish something sturdy with his bare hands. It was a procession of death and desperation and feral screaming and heart stopping adrenalin and he was eternally grateful that he’d taken one shining moment in all that misery, to hold Sam. She was his light out here he realised, he just hoped she felt the same about him and he tried to hold onto that happy look and that soft smile as she’d let her blue eyes twinkle up at him. Because right now her eyes looked haunted and tired. There was only so much death and gore a person she be expected to meet out in one day.  
“We need to find somewhere to hole up.” He admitted finally, Sam looked about ready to drop, not that she would let herself, but she nodded almost gratefully at the idea.

“There's a Red Rocket up ahead.” Preston pointed looking through his scope to the truck stop diner. They're usually pretty defensible if you get up on the roof. Sam checked her Pip-Boy, as with this whole area the Geiger meter was spiking, which was probably why it was so infested with Ghouls, the only things left standing.

“You know, I'm starting to rethink this whole traipse across the Wasteland by foot thing.” Jack grumbled as they started walking. “Carter... can we make your next project a tank... hell I'd take an open top convertible right about now. Just something with wheels that moves faster than they do.”

Preston rolled his eyes. “This what you guys did back then, drive everywhere?”

“No.” Jack groused. “Sometimes we flew.” he grinned at Preston's look of polite amusement, “Really fast.” He sighed, God he missed flying. Even now nearly 10 years being out of a chair. Preston sidled up to him, on alert, scanning the area, but Jack realised that the guy quite liked hearing about the old times. Although Jack didn't quite have the heart to tell him he was remembering a 'different Earth's old times, so most times he kept it vague enough not to draw any pointed questions.

“Or we rode.” Sam added and he glanced back at her and she shrugged. “What, I miss my baby.” 

Preston startled, “You had a baby?”

Sam blinked. “No, its just an expression. I had a motorcycle. People, some people,” she clarified at Jack’s look, “got attached to their vehicles or other objects of importance, sometimes we named them.” She added sheepishly and he smirked. He loved her in her riding leathers, which thankfully seemed to be a look out here.

“Oh.” Preston paused. “This is Vera.” he pointed to the laser musket with a proud grin. “This is my baby, right here.” The two of them shared a look before they started laughing and Jack rolled his eyes, he'd never got the idea of naming inanimate objects. One tool was as good as another.

“Okay, kids, settle down. We've got one more extermination round and then we can settle down around a campfire and tell ghost stories.” He snipped, only half joking. But the effect was sobering and he regretted seeing the smile come off Sam’s face. 

The last two places they'd started staking out targets from a distance, they'd found a pretty decent sniper rifle and Sam had been taking the killing shots, but it was taking a toll on her he could see. This much senseless death shouldn't feel like routine. He took the rifle from her and indicated with a look that she was going down this time, she handed it over wordlessly but he thought he detected relief there. From his vantage spot on top looking down the hill he watched Preston and Sam go. It killed him to do it, but he was better able to protect Carter up here than he was down there, just like she’d been doing for him, granted she was a better shot long range with a rifle, but he wasn’t a slouch. But she’d be fine down there she was light on her feet and Preston, well he could take care of himself, which meant she had one less thing to worry about down there, other than her own ass. And his knees were aching something fierce now, slow was dead out here, he’d learnt that lesson the hard way.

They were efficient, almost practiced now, he even managed to spot a couple of sleeping ones before they had a chance to get up and try and take chunks out of them. Although Carter had pointed out the town before, that it was highly unlikely they were sleeping, given as they didn't really have much of a brain left. More likely they were simply dormant between feedings. He liked his idea better. He pretty much thought they'd got them all and he spotted Carter turn and give him the regroup signal.

But he made that fatal flaw that all snipers are taught right from basic training, not to do. He forgot about his own surroundings, of securing his own ass first. There was a sound like a groan and then there was something clawing at his back, his leathers kept its hands at bay but it was strong and he felt it lurch him up, throwing him over so it could get to the meaty bits in front. He batted with his hands and arms, trying to shove the damn thing away as it used that ferocious energy to batter at him relentlessly. He had to tear a hand away he realised or it was all over, as he reached down desperately for his pistol strapped to his thigh holster. The thing bit him causing Jack to let out a roared of pain and fury as he tried beating it to death with his own damn elbow. Fuck he hadn't wanted to die like this, eaten alive by a fucking zombie. Worst way to go, ever. And a fate he’d only just survived the last damn time he’d been ambushed by these bastards.

There was a growl and something brown and furred shot across his chest and barrelled straight into the Ghoul, knocking it clean off him. It took him a moment as he scrambled to his feet, winded and bruised and so full of adrenalin he already had his gun in his hand before he'd realised it. It was a dog, a damn dog, and it had the Ghoul in its jaws, desperately trying to take its head of with its own teeth by the looks of it as it clawed at the poor thing. Jack whipped up his gun and stalked forward, plugging one sound shot straight into the Ghouls head and watching with satisfaction as the thing fell limp. 

The dog growled and gave the jaw one last crack before taking the head off and falling back with a 'whuff' that sounded to Jack like he was grading him well on his take down. Then he stopped, sat back on his haunches and just stared at Jack. It was the darndest thing, it wasn't wild, clearly it had been raised by humans, and it wasn't mangy like the rest of the animals he'd seen, in fact it was a big beautiful German Shepherd. Its fur needed a good brush through, but his teeth looked clean and his nose wet and bright and it was obviously strong.

“Hey boy.” Jack crouched down, glancing around and making sure nothing else was going to take him out as he extended the back of his hand and waited to the dog. The dog cocked his head and then like it had already decided to like him, padded forward and nudged his hand with its head. Jack grinned, extending his hand and burying it in all that doggy fur, stroking the animal.  
“You just saved my life, you know that.” He patted the dog, honestly he could say that a lot of people had saved his life before, never a dog. It was oddly refreshing. The dog barked once and he nodded, impressed. Well whoever he used to belong to, he'd clearly been well trained. Jack stood. 

“See ya around.” he stroked the head one more time, before turning to go. The dog followed. Jack sighed. Sam would kill him if he bought home a dog. A dog they'd have to feed, it was hard enough to feed yourself these days. Although, the animal was clearly well fed, maybe it knew how to hunt.

Jack glanced down at the dog trotting beside him, directly at his heel. Well trained. He could work with that, Sam would come around. She liked big dumb animals, he was case and point. He stopped and stared down at the dog. 

“Fine. You can come, but it ain't just me you got to convince. There's a woman up there, yellow hair great legs, go be all... likeable at her. She says you can stay, you can stay.” He bent down noticing a collar. 

‘Dogmeat’. He read. Well someone had a sense of humour at least.

He strolled into the Red Rocket garage and heard a weapon click. Sam had her gun pointed at the dog, only half-cocked but he appreciated her caution all the same. “Hey easy.” he waved her down.   
“He saved my life. I figure that earns him a pass and a few free meals.” Jack sidled up to her, the dog at his heels, intending on kissing her, it had been a trying day and he needed to reassure himself she was fine.

But Sam's eyes were on his chest, her hands shot out, the gun abandoned as she examined his neck. “You've been scratched.” she informed him, “It got this close?” her eyes were big and blue and worried and he tugged her in for a kiss anyway, just because he could. And because he'd almost died and because he’d wanted to celebrate being alive by kissing her at least a dozen times before… probably more.

It didn’t disappoint. Sam’s lips, her mouth and yeah, that was all the celebration he needed.

She allowed it for a few moments before gently pulling back and dropping her forehead to his, her hand trailing his stubbled cheek.   
“Nice as that is, let's secure the site shall we.” Her eyes scanned him and her hands trailed his arms finding the bite wound on his forearm, her finger traced the bloody ridge of it gently, looking faintly horrified.   
“Jack, this looks deep… my God it’s a bite.” She exclaimed looking mad and scared enough to smack him upside his head. 

“It’s fine, barely nicked me.” He muttered pulling his shirt down to conceal it. “Although… if your willing to give out sympathy kisses?” His eyebrows waggled and she rolled her eyes shoving him away lightly.

“I’m mad at you for being this careless.” She glared at him, “And I'm putting some of that weird ointment we used for burns and scrapes on those wounds before you go all Ghoul on me.” She instructed brushing over his chest, clearly he hadn’t distracted her with that kiss, but she was smiling softly again as he closed his hand over hers on his chest and she sighed concern leeching out of her a little now she could see he was in fact ‘fine’ enough to be cracking jokes. Which made him feel slightly more pleased than someone almost eaten by a ghoul, probably had a right to be. She pulled out the pot and carefully applied some of the weird odourless grey paste to his forearm and then his chest, her fingers trailing over the skin lightly for a moment, their eyes met.

“If we’re talking rub downs and ointment, you know I think it got me just…” She cocked an eyebrow daring him to complete that sentence. He wimped out at the scathing look and ducked his head chuckling. Still slightly terrified of flirting with Carter when she was mad…. yeah, same old. She sauntered away, pocketing the magic ointment and he couldn’t help but grin, she’d totally been tempted for like a second he figured. Maybe tonight.

It seemed that Dogmeat understood his earlier instruction just fine, because the previously quiet, controlled dog was suddenly all over her, rubbing against her legs, wagging its tail and hopping up on his hind legs to look intently at her face. Sucking up to the real alpha in the group. Traitor.

Sam was grinning and patting the dog with variations of 'good boy' and he knew she was more of a cat person but clearly a dog would do in a pinch. Especially if it saved his life.   
“Fine.” She sighed at the dog. “You can stay for a bit, honestly what did that silly General do? Did he forget to check his six... yes he did, yes he did.” She teased, rubbing Dogmeats fur roughly, who was clearly becoming as quickly enamoured with her as he was as he butted her with his head, whuffing lightly.

“Oy.” Jack exclaimed mildly affronted that she was teasing him via dog. That was sort of underhanded. “Don't make him an accomplice to your snark. Ruuuude.” 

She rolled her eyes at him. “I'm not calling him Dogmeat.” She retorted with an eyeroll, clearly having seen the collar. “Its sick.”

“It's what he responds too!” Jack yelled back as she stalked away, the damn dog turned back and he swear he saw him shrug. Even Preston who was watching the exchange with amusement smirked at him and shook his head.

“Yeah. Yeah. I told you she was the boss.” he told Dogmeat muttering as he followed after her with the dog beside him and Preston taking up their six.   
“Reckon you could get used to Rover?” he posed quite seriously at the dog who gave him what he swore was a smile and head shake and ambled after what he correctly assumed would be his meal ticket.

They walked until they reached a river crossing and a big study stone bridge, across it was what had clearly been a town, but it had been barricaded up behind high metal walls squinting Jack was certain he could see turrets sticking out. Looked like someone was dug in tight. The bridge ahead had concrete blockades across it at the far end closest to the town. There was also evidence of pitched gunfights, explosions… some structural damage, but it was the cleared area in front of him that gave him pause the general level of debris there making the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He put his hand out across Preston’s chest as he wandered forward and shook his head at him as he stared down at the bridge surface. 

“Wait… something’s up.” He told the other man firmly. Sam came to stand where he was and looked at what he was seeing.

“Mines.” Sam confirmed with a grimace, saying what he’d suspected from the damage he could see around and the careful cut back of the surroundings. “I’m surprised they haven’t bought the whole bridge down like this before now. Idiots.” She crouched down and examined a hairline crack in the stone, looking around it to see if it spread to the foundations too with a shake of her head.

Preston glanced through his scope. Then back at the two of them, looking faintly impressed. “Yeah I can see it now, frag mines… maybe pulse mines, hidden in the rubble.” He lowered his rifle. “Impressive spot.” Jack shrugged, he’d been around enough mine fields to know the signs. Especially active ones.

Preston’s head was back in his scope and he withdrew with a dark look.   
“We got Gunners. Damn.” Preston hissed and took off his hat for a minute, smacking it against his leg and looking around as if expecting to find an alternative route. He turned back to them putting his hat back on and Jack recalled the tale he’d told about the Quincy Massacre around the Campfire. It had been how Preton’s little group of misfits had come to be in Sanctuary really, having fled the massacre. 

Way Preston told it, one of his old Minutemen pals had lost faith in the cause after the death of their General, and tired of all the political squabbling – Jack could relate, he’d been General about 5minutes back on Earth and he was sick of it. But apparently for this ex-friend the Gunners had seemed like the next best hope of a safer, ordered Commonwealth. Jack personally thought the guy ‘Clint’ he recalled cause the name had made him think of ‘Eastwood’, had clearly seen a power vacuum and attempted to seize it. Town of Quincy just got the short end of it, being well-established and so they’d wanted it. Ol’ Mama Murphy had seen them coming though with her half-baked visions which had given the folks that wanted to listen some warning, they’d called the Minutemen for help. And they’d come, even arrived in time to beat back a recon force, some Lt Col Hollis leading the charge Preston right there with them. They’d done what they could shored up the place, setup walkways and ramps across the rooftops to give them higher ground and prevent retreat, but they’d known they couldn’t stand against the invading Gunner force if they’d committed to the attack so they called for reinforcements. They were outgunned, outnumbered and the Gunners were picking away at their defence’s day after day. But then Hollis had made a fatal flaw… he’d thought he was dealing with honourable men. They’d called him out to discuss terms of a surrender and shot him dead. 

Preston had told him grimly that it went from bad to worse, they were trapped for days in a siege but the reinforcements never came, his ex-pal Clint and the Gunners had taken advantage of the highway intersection the town had been built around, blowing out the support structures in the dead of night. The crashed road became a ramp over the walls and just like that they were taken by surprise and breached. A whole town except Preston and the twenty people he’d managed to get out were slaughtered. Then the Wasteland in its mercy had picked those survivors down to the handful he and Sam had saved. It had certainly been one of those tales that had flattened the atmosphere in the camp right out. Jack was surprised after that that Preston would believe in the Minutemen so much, but way he saw it, had the Minutemen still been stable, strong, Gunners never would have got a look in.

Jack put his hand on Preston’s shoulder and squeezed it supportively. Man had his demons too and today probably wasn’t the day to face them. Not with just the three of them. Four he supposed with the Dog – who he was totally counting. 

“We’ll find another way.” Jack told him firmly. “No point starting another turf war for the Minutemen just yet before we’ve even gotten our first recruits in and our base up and running right?” Preston didn’t make eye contact but nodded with clear relief. Jack patted his shoulder and retreated, that was about as much emotional support as he could give standing outside a minefield, which was currently between him and a safe route to this damn Diamond City. 

Jack looked over at Sam. “We got another option here?” He pointed out over the area, seemed like they’d blocked off the whole town, including the bridge across the river; he wasn’t sure he fancied a detour for miles through rough terrain with god knows what out there in the wilds. Or a swim… he was quite certain ‘there be monsters’ in there, plus he’d been popping his Rad-X pills regularly but they were starting to run low, they’d need a restock before he thought about dunking his whole body in something that radioactive again. Seemed in this area the whole place was lighting up Sam’s ‘clicky’ counter.

Sam frowned. “I don’t want to go further South, there’s a huge crater there that I think looks like ground Zero for the nuclear explosion that decimated this entire area.” Sam explained and Jack sighed, that explained the increased ‘clicking’ then. And here he thought taking a stroll suited up through Chenobyl had been brave, this was waaaaay closer to a nuclear fallout site than he ever wanted to be. He doubted his ‘fertile balls’ would stay that way for long out here.

“The Crater of Atom.” Preston shook his head explaining, “Yeah we aren’t getting that way, the skin will slough right off your bones before your even half way around.” He looked uneasy, “Plus I hear the Children of Atom set up there… any part of us survives the radiation, those whackos will see to it that we’re good and dead for encroaching on their ‘holy site’.” 

“Do I even want to know what they are?” Jack pressed and Preston gave him a head shake. “So we need another way across this damn river.” Dogmeat brushed up against his leg and gave him a faint whuff and started trotting down the river bank along the road. 

Jack followed slowly, Sam rolled her eyes. “We’re following the damn dog now?” Jack shrugged.

“Hey he lives here, we’re just tourists. Besides I trust his nose over mine.” He added and jogged as the dog put a bit of speed on and seemed to be snuffling along looking for something. It turns out apparently the Dog was aware of an alternative route.

“Hell no!” Preston replied staring at what the dog had found.

Sam however was looking at the Pip-Boy again. “Okay, actually that’s not the worst idea in the world.” She admitted giving the dog his damn due, Jack glanced at Preston who was shaking his head like it really was that bad an idea, as he gripped his rifle tightly. The man wasn’t exactly scared of much so Jack gave it due consideration.

“Okay… I’ll say this once ‘cause I like you both, but no way, no how is the subway a better option.” Preston told them frankly, looking more than a little nervous at the prospect. 

“Jack it goes for miles,” Sam reasoned, “Straight under the river, under the entire town, hell we could travel all the way to Diamond City that way. It would cut down on our time significantly if we don’t have to keep going around everything.” She reasoned holding out her arm to show him the subway route beneath the outskirts of Boston central, heading in towards Diamond City. It was certainly more direct.

“Yeah… so we avoid nasties up here and what nasties are we looking at down there?” Jack asked looking to Preston for answers.

“Ghouls… rotted ones, maybe even glowing ones. Molerats probably. This close to the crater could even be some Radscorpions burrowed in deep down there… big ones.” Preston replied sharply. Clearly it was nuts.

“Your not leaving me a lot of options here Preston.” Jack pointed out and Preston closed his eyes slumping in clear defeat. Jack let out a huff.   
“Look, we gotta go one way. Subway at least is going to be enclosed, I’m thinking funnels of directed fire in a confined space like that should work well, seems better than the prospect of taking on some organised para-military group with ordinance.” He indicated the metal barricades and he was certain he could already hear the tell-tale whirring of turrets. God knows how many they had in there. He was good, but even he had his limits. Maybe if Sam had her Power Armour, but she’d left it in Sanctuary for safe keeping, that and its power requirements were enormous. She’d found a way to get more juice out those power cores they used, but it still took time they didn’t have to charge, plus she suspected it was an older model suit, there was only so much she could do to modify it. Also… they’d both considered that maybe it wasn’t the best impression to go making on a City full of people they didn’t know to parade about in a walking tank when they were trying to re-establish the Minutemen as something more for the Community. After all, Sturgess had made it clear that Power Armour was pretty much affiliated with the Brotherhood of Steel, a bunch of military goons with what sounded a lot to Jack like pseudo-religious beliefs and an isolationist streak. Apparently, they were out to ‘purify’ the Wastes. Yeah, he wasn’t so sure that was the best people to be emulating when trying to make friends and influence people.

“Right, executive decision, I’m the General… we’re going in the damn subway.”

“Great.” Preston muttered and Jack wondered if one of the first things he might have to do with this new Minutemen militia was establish what exactly Chain of Command meant.

Sam came up behind him and slipped her hand along and up the back of his neck, he turned and she stood up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, her lips sliding along his jaw until she could nip at his earlobe.   
“Yes Sir.” She rasped and it was all kinds of wrong, that despite the fact that he was about to go into an old subway network that promised to be crawling with nasties, that he was half hard at the feel of her teeth on his skin as she rasped her favourite line. Damn it.

\---*---

The subway at the surface level wasn’t as bad as Sam had expected. Possibly because like Preston, most sane people tended to avoid it down here, although the stench of mould and rotting… well everything, combined with an unhealthy level of damp made her wish she didn’t have to breathe quite so often. And stepping as she went was fresh hell, she didn’t want to know what was underfoot as they made their way down the stairs into the red-lit gloom. Just seeing the abandoned benches, the vending machines, scattered burnt magazines and a dozen other things that reminded her that life had once teemed here.

“It’s still got power.” She admitted pleased, as she wasn’t sure, even though she’d supported this idea, that she’d have held her nerve had it been pitch black down here. Not with molerats burrowing about, she hated those things, a rat was bad enough, but to have it become some giant burrowing disease spreading monstrosity was beyond awful.

“Yep… and that’s the only bright side.” Jack muttered close by her shoulder. She glanced up at him in the red lit gloom, more than grateful that he was here with her. God she couldn’t imagine having to go through this alone… or with anyone else. Teal’c maybe, but the big J’affa would have undoubtedly struggled to provide her with the emotional support she needed to stay sane and motivated to get up in the morning. Daniel… well she was certain he’d have been killed before they even made it to Sanctuary, he’d gotten better with weapons but he didn’t have the instinctive skillset and reaction times needed out here. 

Then there was Jack… she reached out and found his hand for a moment, just because she could and gave it a squeeze, wanting to feel the solidness of him. He glanced at her questioningly, his ‘you good?’ in a single eyebrow raise. She nodded, not really feeling it and let go of his hand to hop the turnstile after Preston. 

The moment her feet hit the ground the small impact tremor roused the sleeping ghouls, feral and rotted and hungry as hell. Jack landed beside her and as a three, with the Dog herding things into their line of fire they took out the first wave. Jack had been right, contained like this, their backs together, the groups were manageable. Terrifying though, her hand hadn’t stopped shaking terror fuelling adrenalin which she was desperately using her training and 8 years on the front line to direct into something approaching battle ready. 

They reached the bottom level, the stairways crawling as they made their slow but steady way down into the bowls of old civilisation. She tried not to see the signs that proclaimed about a life that would never be again. The adverts for dishwasher soap, the promotions for Mr Handy robots promising to ‘revolutionise your household’. Nor did she want to especially acknowledge that the Dog was helpful, he was like an early warning system, and more than once he’d rebutted a ghoul or two that had gotten too close from all of them. But she didn’t want the attachment or the damn responsibility of taking care of an animal out here. She could barely keep herself and Jack alive… his little run-in with the ghoul on the surface telling her as much, that one had gotten way too close, she knew because he’d downplayed it. He’d have bitched and moaned like a princess if it hadn’t worried him.

One wave became two, then three. Just like every damn town they’d seemed to stumble across through the ‘glowing sea’ as Preston called it, ghouls seemed to be the only thing surviving this close to the crater. She wasn’t sure which hurt worse, her arms from the strain of the big gun and the constant recoil, or her eyes… from peering through the gloom to find these monstrous things and seeing nothing of the human-beings they once were as they clawed for you.

Finally, they reached the train platform level. It seemed the ghouls had been driven up from this level by a particularly unpleasant mix of albino mole-rats and radroaches. Even Jack looked a little green as they blasted away.

“Hey.” Preston called over to her as he wiped green gunk or whatever the radroach had spat at him, off his shirt gingerly with the end of an old newspaper, “Could be worse, could be radscorpions. Those buggers like to burrow deep and they don’t mind the radiation.”

Sam had the pleasure only once of encountering a radscorpion, back when it was just the two of them in Sanctuary and they still hadn’t quite finished adapting to this world, not that she thought she was now, but she had toughened up. If she was honest she might have underestimated the beast, although how it was she’d come to do that she wasn’t sure, the thing was an overgrown scorpion the size of a cow, with a stinger longer than her body and pincers that could cut a man clean in half. Fast and aggressive, not the type of thing you wanted to find in the vegetable patch in the middle of the night when you’d gone to take a leak, as Jack called it. Which was of course exactly how she’d found him. Dodging the pincers from the top of his own outhouse… the one time he hadn’t taken the gun with him. She’d only got her 10mm, it had been a little bit like firing blanks at its thick exoskeleton; mostly it made a lot of noise and pissed it off. Jack had more success beating any part of it that moved towards him with his baseball bat from his precariously perched position.

Given as he’d looked like he was about to be skewered, she’d made the decision to distract it. She after all was on solid ground and had a lot of options that Jack, pinned to the outhouse, didn’t. So, like an idiot, she’d made herself bait. It wasn’t hard, she darted in front and shot it in the head. The bullet glanced off and she’d darted back, avoiding the stinger that landed an inch from her foot and sunk into the concrete. She and Jack had shared a look and she’d turned and hightailed it as fast as she could. The thing took the bait, but it was faster on its eight legs than she was on two, apparently as it scuttled after her at impossible speed. Much like escaping a dog, she’d found the big tree in the middle of town and launched herself up it with a kind of speed and agility that she was slightly annoyed no one would see. By that time Jack had retrieved the big Vault cryo gun he’d been saving for special occasions due to limited ammo, and had started taking pot shots trying to distract it from its meal ticket… namely her desperately clinging to the branches of a tree she feared it might actually be able to bring down with its pincer grip. He’d managed to get one clean shot on it eventually and she had to admit it had been fairly cool to see something freeze solid like that. She’d landed practically on the thing shattering it to pieces, it took a freeze ray to kill that last one… so she echoed Preston’s sentiment, better some creepy molerats than another radscorpion.

Jack was looking about as unhappy as she was about the situation down here. “So, this place is nice.” He groused. “Bit like hell coughed up the parts it didn’t like and made a God damn nest!”

“I told you the subway was bad news.” Preston grumbled. Jack shot him a look.

“Yeah… ‘bad news’” Jack air quoted, “is for when you pranged the car… or ran out of blue raspberry jello.” Jack all but growled at him. “This… is a god damn shit show down here!”

Sam rolled her eyes. She thought this might be Jack and Preston’s first fight, the two of them had generally gotten on like a house on fire since that first day they met. It helped that they were both quite easy going. But apparently dark tunnels rotting away with monsters bought out the ‘tetch’ in them both.

“Will you two shut the hell up!” She snapped and glared soundly at them both. “We’re down here. And yes it was a bad call. But we’re here, my Pip-Boy has us only a few clicks out. I suggest we make a beeline for those damn train cars, climb through and try and make for an exit to the surface at the next station.”

She shone the Pip-Boy light over at the train car and sighed as the light reflected back in a dozen or so cloudy eyes. Fuck. She reloaded her rifle.

“Train cars are crawling aren’t they.” Jack muttered sounding almost morbidly amused by that as he handed her a clip and she pocketed it glancing back at the red dots that even on her damn device looked angry at having been woken up.

“Yeah sure ya’ betcha.” She sighed, shouldering her rifle.

“Grenades still a bad idea down here?” He questioned his eyes on the sudden movement as rotting bodies started flowing out of the abandoned subway cars, she tracked the top exit whilst Jack had the bottom and Preston watched their rear. The Dog had parked itself at Jack’s feet watching the tunnel to their left with a low growl that suggested they might have to deal with two flows of traffic shortly.

“Very bad idea.” She replied, “Unless you want to be buried alive down here with those things. That is if the concussive shock doesn’t kill us outright.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that.” He replied and took aim. “Seriously though, this world sucks.” He muttered and let rip with his semi-automatic rifle, she tried not to notice the way his eyes danced, she wondered if sometimes he enjoyed this world just a little too much. Wondered and worried as she turned and took aim herself, trying to keep it tight, clean and quick, headshot – move on, headshot – move on. Something grabbed at her and the dog tore it off, chest shot – headshot – move on. It was systematic, precise, god help her practiced. She wished she’d been this able that day in the woods. Granted there was no way this was the same situation, but she liked to think that if she were caught out like that again they might be able to save someone, anyone. 

They managed to clear the platform and what she hoped was the last of the ones shuffling about down here and made it into the train cars and she rummaged around in suitcases and left behind belongings for anything of use. She found a medpak, some old magazines, a blue lunchbox with a silver spoon in it which she pocketed, but nothing much else of value. She didn’t think anyone had been dumb enough to come down here since the bombs fell. A hand slid to her waist and she startled before realising it was Jack as his hand enclosed her gun hand for a moment and he leant in close to her, a kiss to her temple as an apology for surprising her. She assumed he’d meant to move past her, but now that he had her there trapped, she could feel the way his fingers trailed her hip, gripping on.

“Not far now Sam.” He told her quietly, the unease in his tone belying how nervous being down here made him. She was almost relieved that he was feeling it too.

“Yeah because the surface will be so much better.” She replied darkly.

“Hey, hey…” he spun her and gripped her face in his hands, “look at me.” He insisted turning her head as she’d stared at his chest, rather than face his eyes.   
“Sam.” He urged and drew her head up to press a kiss to her forehead, then trailed a gentle path down to her lips, where he kissed her firmly. It had the desired effect, her blood pounded and her breath caught, they’d not had the chance to be together since that night a few days ago on the roof of Sanctuary. That night had been simultaneously the best and worst of her life, because she finally had Jack… and it had only taken the end of the world.

Leaving Sanctuary was starting to feel like a dumb plan, they’d been happy there for one shining moment, now… now she wasn’t happy, she was struggling to feel anything other than despair, or a sweeping numbess. Sam hated the idea that somehow in her head Sanctuary was the closest thing to a feeling of home she suspected they might have out here. That’s when it hit her, what this sick, numb feeling was, she was home sick. Not for Sanctuary though, but for their actual home, their world. It had only taken four months to feel that way, but she felt it now. The idea of a place where she didn’t have to scavenge the dead, where train cars weren’t filled with rotting monsters waiting for you to slip up, to be just that fraction too slow. Where groups of people weren’t eaten alive in the woods and you didn’t have to live in fear of raiders and… literally everyone else being out to get you. 

Then Jack was kissing her again and that numbness pushed away for a moment as she felt whole and safe… home. Because here was the only memory she really had of his lips on hers, the feel of his calloused fingers holding her just that little too tight, as though afraid she’d disappear. He pulled back and stared hard at her, trying to will her to suck it up or something, and she closed her eyes, dropping her gaze to the lunchbox for a moment.

“I don’t like it out here.” She confessed. “Sanctuary, it wasn’t much, but…”

“I know.” He soothed, his hand tracing a pattern up her spine and she knew he did understand. “We’ve not had the easiest ride so far. But I’m thinking that’s why this place needs us… you know, ‘to be all we can be’.” He smiled tightly. “It’ll be better in the City.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No. But I have faith.” He replied firmly. 

“Not hope?” She queried and he frowned, knowing the issues she’d had with regards to ‘hope’ and how tangled that emotion had gotten.

“There’s always room for a little bit of hope Sam.” He reminded her. “Snowballs, remember.”

Sam smiled and looked away. “Did you ever see us ending up like this… I mean look where we are?” She pointed to the dark dingy subway car, broken, ruined complete with the skeletons of the people that had once had lives, loves, hopes too.

“I know.” He replied again, letting out a sigh, but he didn’t actually look she noted. Maybe that was how he did it, how he kept his composure, kept his optimism, maybe it was as simple as ‘not looking’. 

Sam nodded and sniffed, surprised that she was pressing close to the verge of tears. Jack looked a little disconcerted at seeing the tears in her eyes when she lifted her head.   
“I knew the Wasteland would be bad Jack… I just, its so bleak. I mean I just want to scream and cry and rage at it all.” She admitted, and a few tears fell as she hastily wiped them away. Mama Murphy was right, the world was too hard for tears now and once she broke that dam, she might never stop. 

“Sam, you got to believe me, this is why we’re here. To put a bit of that snowballs chance back into this world. Its not perfect, but its better than watching it all just rot away.” He confessed as he reached out and brushed her cheek with his thumb, his eyes gentle for a moment as he opened his arms and she gratefully accepted the hug for a moment. She half expected Preston to stick his head in the train car and tell them hugging in the crawling subways, was as inappropriate as dancing in the road… but she didn’t much care. The Dog was at the doorway, lying down eyes front, ears flat. That was a good enough indication that they were safe for the moment.

“I’ll find a way to make it better Sam, I promise, please just keep going yeah. One foot and all that.” He asked gently stroking her back and she nodded swallowing down the emotion to some time more appropriate… which was looking like never.

“Take each day as it comes?” She quipped up at him. “How cliché.”

“I don’t know, maybe cliché’s are growing on me.” He muttered slinging an arm around her shoulder and moving her away from whatever it was he thought had set her off and back towards the front. They had to get to the surface still yet after all and he wanted her head in the game. She recognised his tactic, distract with humour and self-depreciating, ‘stick it to the man’ irreverence. 

“I think that sentence was a cliché in itself Jack.” She sighed, lacing her fingers with his and letting her head rest on his shoulder for just a moment.

“See, told ya.” He smiled gently and she returned it, even if she didn’t feel it, he was probably feeling as broken about all this as she was, she knew he was just better at hiding it. 

Maybe that’s how they’d do this – get by, they’d be strong for each other, God knows they’d done it before. She just hoped she had enough strength left not to let him down.


	10. Superduper Dead-Mart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: graphic violence/gore

Sam elongated her stride just a touch to keep up with the men, they were both over 6ft and despite being tall, she wasn't 'that' tall. They'd been on the road now for two days, they should reach Diamond City tomorrow morning, according to Preston it would probably take them another two days to reach the Castle after that, it was really only 40miles or so from Sanctuary to the Castle but all the damn attacks and roadblocks and territory disputes had meant that had to keep taking a less direct route and backtracking. Although thankfully they’d all unanimously agreed they wouldn’t be short-cutting through the subway system again. But still it was exhausting. Jack had equated it to taking a stroll through a town in Iraq during the Gulf. Although he said he'd been shot at less then. And only a couple of people had actually tried to bite him.

Jack thought he had an inkling of the geography having been to Boston, he was pretty sure that Sanctuary was back where the Minute Man National Park had been and that the Castle was going to be Fort Independence. Sam thought she vaguely recalled this but having lived all over the country, but largely in Washington or the mid-west well, the East Coast was more of a mystery to her. Still it was strange to have such obvious landmarks that had fallen into ruin. Some days it was the familiarity of it all that broke her, she'd have rather a dead world, than 'their-almost' dead world. 

The Dog... because she refused to call it Dogmeat, stopped and paused, waiting for her to catch-up those few strides she'd fallen behind again. Jack would have noticed too, but he trusted her to call out if she needed a slower pace, or a break. It was her attention that was the issue not her damn legs. As if to hammer that point home the sight in front of her she should have spotted sooner took her almost by surprised and she dropped into a crouch beside Jack and Preston as the hid. In front of them was a large building that had a sign stating clearly 'Superduper Mart', complete with trolleys turned into something that looked like it ought to be at a butchers and chained up sacks holding what she hoped to god wasn't the remains of a human being... or several. There were the raiders pinned or spiked or pulverised in some way strung up or skewered to the outside on spikes as a deterrent, or macabre decoration, the whole place looked like some kind of butchers shop gone bad.

By the slightly green look on Preston's face she'd suspected her first guess was right.   
“Supermutants.” he'd shook his head, she knew Jack had tangled with these things but she’d yet to have the pleasure. “We go that way, we're going to have to wipe them all out, it’s like stepping on an ant hive. And they're tough bastards. Heavy artillery, missiles, machete's the size of your arm.”

Sam didn't like the expression on Jack's face.

“Oh come on your not serious!” She all but hissed at him. He gave her a look that said 'hear me out, I listen to enough of your crazy ideas'. She crossed her arms.   
“Have you seen what is hanging there. Meat-bags. Literally.” she added feeling queasy just at the thought. “And that’s what’s left of the people spiked and mangled out there. They clearly carve people up or bash you to little bite size bits for god knows what reason!” She snapped terror and nausea warring for dominance with disgust and horror as she posed her rhetorical question. 

“To eat.” Preston replied grimly. “Or because it’s fun.” He added more darkly and Sam looked away, she hadn’t wanted an answer to that question.

Jack grimaced. “Well that’s a step up from Ghouls, at least with Supermutants your dead when they eat you.” He shared a knowing look with Preston before her horrified expression caught his attention and he quelled the manic grin, sensing that she really was worried about the gallows humour he had going on right now. 

Perhaps all that talk of Iraq hadn't been good for him, he'd been in a dark mood since, no more dancing in the road anyway, not that she blamed him, it was probably a little bit of his inevitable PTSD which he claimed he didn't have. “I’m handling it.” He'd groused at her as she'd tried to get him to talk to her about it when they'd stopped for a comfort break. Yesterday it seemed had been her moment to have a small breakdown, today was his, only in typical Jack style he wasn’t breaking, so much as imploding. 

She glanced at Preston looking for support, given as he generally seemed risk averse. But he was eyeing the SuperDuper Mart with a certain resolve.   
“Oh for God sake no. We don't need a grocery run!” she reasoned that was where they were going with this. “I thought we’d learnt our lesson about unnecessary detours in the damn subway.” She reminded.

“Carter.” Jack started he generally called her Sam now, but he defaulted back to Carter whenever it was any sort of combat situation. Or his was furious with her. She’d yet to hear him snap ‘Colonel’ again in a while… so there was that.  
“Look,” he swiped his thumb over his lips, looking faintly guilty as he considered the inevitable it seemed. “Preston and I have been thinking of hitting one of these for a while, we’ve come across a couple of places like this.” He admitted, “Didn’t quite have the manpower, but with the four of us…” He shrugged helplessly like it was out of his hands and she felt irritation bloom, he could play the hapless fool well enough when it suited him, he could see she wasn’t buying it and held up his hand to stop her comment as she opened her mouth. “And yes, we need the supplies. Unless you've got another few MRE packs your hiding in your jacket?”

“I’m out of Sugarbombs too.” Preston muttered, seeing her look he quickly added. “Plus we’ll stand more chance of getting into Diamond City touting supply lines back West if we have something to show for it.” He added and Sam dropped her head, sighing, she was being outvoted. She ground her teeth in irritation, that they were probably right irked her more than anything. Because she’d never wanted to go in somewhere less. 

“There's three of us.” She retorted snottily. “The Dog doesn't count.” Because she had no other reasonable argument other than the idea of what was down there scared her more than the ghouls at this point and these last few days had been no cake walk.

Jack of course knew where her head was at. “Look, Carter, these things are tough and repulsive, but they’re dumb as rocks, Preston and I have taken them on before, it’ll be fine.” He told her with an air of irreverence she’d learnt to trust, but out here, it made her a little nervous, out here carless got you dead… pretty much the way a lot of things did.

“Those were camps and they were outside.” Sam glowered, knowing full well what he’d been off doing, Preston was a bit of a light weight when it came to rum apparently. “That is an entirely different ball game, there is literally nowhere to run.” She pointed out.

“Oh come on, where’s your sense of adventure Carter?” Jack walked beside her and swatted her ass in a move that might have got him Court Marshalled not so long ago, or soundly punched. Now she just glowered at him, darting away in case he tried again. But she hadn’t missed the order he’d tried ‘not’ to give. Apparently, the General had decided they were doing this. Just like the damn subway. And here she’d thought they were voting, partners, wasn’t that what he’d promised? It seems that went out the window if he didn’t like her answer. Sam threw a look at his back, deciding that they’d need to talk about this at some point, and her instinct to follow, even now. But Preston was of no help, other than his voiced protest of the Subway, it seemed like he’d been waiting for someone to give him an order worth a damn for a long time and he was more than happy to follow the General’s.

“And Dogmeat definitely counts.” Jack called back thoroughly ending any discussion as he slid past and went to stake out the entryway, patting the dog on his head as he went, who looked dignified under the fuss.

“Well at least they'll know what to put on the label of the can they'll stuff him into.” She retorted and Jack paused, glancing back over his shoulder to give her a darkly knowing look. Okay so maybe her humour had gone a bit dark of late as well. Possibly Jack had been right about the need to see a shrink to get a handle on her own share of PTSD that needed to work its way out, from any one of the many terrible things she'd been through since joining the SGC. And after landing here. 

Inside was every bit as bad as she’d thought it would be. The Supermutant's up close and personal were she supposed like the big dumb trolls Jack had described, albeit very real and terrifyingly capable of tearing you limb from limb. The evidence of that was clear from the sorry band of raiders that had clearly had the same dumb idea as they had a few days ago, at least she was guessing based on their state of decomp... and the smell. She'd been giving some serious thought to damaging her own sense of smell, for exactly this reason. It was overpowering and made her eyes sting and her throat gag involuntarily as they'd hit the inside of what had once been a supermarket. But... the other downside was smell was a powerful tool for spoiled food and catching anyone sneaking up on you out here. The oil she'd stuck under her nose to drown out the smell would have to do for now, as she prayed the contents of her own stomach stayed down, she needed the damn calories.

It was as she ducked and a Supermutant roared spittle in her face its booming voice declaring her a 'stupid human!' as it tried to grab a hold of her and she dove through its legs, that she realised she might actually miss Anubis' Supersoldiers. They were the nearest equivalent to the hulking mass she could think of and she'd once been hounded by one day and night through rough terrain bleeding out which made her shudder just to think and her thigh twinge in remembered pain. But at least those bastards had just wanted to kill you dead. Clean, efficient, brutal and unrelenting, there was a certain purity in dying so quickly, almost painlessly. It was strange to think of any death, particularly a violent one, in being preferred over another. But there were definitely better ways to go than torn limb from limb or pounded with oversized fists, until her bones broke and her flesh split apart which would be her fate here. 

Her escape was short lived as she scrambled away, and felt its huge hand around her throat as she was hurled back into a wall, air exploded out of her lungs and she gasped trying to choke more back in and being blocked by the tightening fist around her throat. It took hold of her arm and she let out a sound with the last of her air, her eyes bulging and her body screaming in agony as it forced the limb to its limit and for one breathless moment, she was about to know what having your arm ripped off felt like. Then it leant in close his grip on her throat loosening slightly as it let out what she was certain was a chuckle, its foul breath flowing over her face and had she not been lost in pure adrenalin fuelled haze of terror she’d have thrown up.

“Pretty pretty little meat-sack.” It growled at her. “Scream.”

She still didn't know if she was more shocked that these things could talk, that they apparently spoke pigeon English, or that this particular one had enough vocabulary to taunt her with as it hounded her. She’d thought that the Supermutants wanted them as a food source, but Jack and Preston had either been horribly naïve or just lucky enough not to get up close. Because this ugly fucker wanted her to suffer, it was grinning like a damn clown as it gave her breath only to scream as it strained her arm to breaking, slowly, slowly she felt it when her shoulder popped and dislocated with a sickening pop of dull agony.

She screamed despite her resolve, turning it into a roar of fury as she headbutted it in the face in desperation, almost knocking herself out on its dense skull. Dogmeat was at its feet snarling and snapping chunks out of anything he could get his teeth into on the hulking green monster. It batted the poor Dog away like a ragdoll with a meaty hand like he was an annoying fly, but it freed Sam’s arm good arm and she reached for the automatic 10mm with the armour piercing rounds on her thigh. It turned back leering at her through its big blunt teeth and she held her breath and she emptied the clip into its head and slumped down to the floor against the wall it had originally tossed her against only a few moments ago. Right before it had kicked out the floor with a violent swipe that had sent Preston and Jack tumbling to the lower levels, unable to assist her, but possibly safe and together at least.

Jack was right about the Dog of course. The moment the Supermutant had gone for her he’d tried to deflect it, charging at the monstera and making the damn thing lunge uselessly which had given her a moment to catch it off balance, spotting her exit through its legs. Even if that had been a short-lived escape as it had grabbed her by the throat and hurled her against the wall. 

Dogmeat stood beside her now blood and spittle on its jaw, and a growl that she could feel all the way along her spine as it pressed closed to her as she scrambled back on her knees, clutching her injured arm to her chest as she pressed herself into the nearest solid wall and tried to catch her breath. Not caring that her one good hand was now covered in blood and gore and it had the gun in a death grip. She was frozen in that spot, anything could have taken her out as she sat there staring at the very dead nearly headless creature that had wanted to end her painfully. The Dog all but stepped over her protectively as they heard the sound of footsteps a low dangerous growl in its throat as she tried to lift the gun and didn’t make it past the mass of fur in front of her that she clutched in desperation.

As if her thoughts had summoned him Jack appeared crashing through the door and from the look on his face, fully expecting to have found her torso, separated from her head. She levelled him with a look, her gun arm wrapped around the fur of Dogmeat's neck like the lifeline he was. She took one slow breath in through her mouth, avoiding her nose all together was safer she found as she tried to slow the beating of her heart and the shake in her limbs, as she sat there surrounded in ‘bone’, ‘brain’ and ‘blood’ as she was. The 3Bs Jack called them, a sure way of making anything dead in the Wasteland.

“Sam?” He asked, the shake in his voice as he all but skidded down next to her.

“I'm fine.” She told him as he cautiously tried to reach for her, only to find her not letting go of either the dog or the gun. 

“Your arm?”

“Dislocated.” She admitted. Preston appeared looking whiter than she’d ever seen the dark-skinned man look, his relief evident had finding her in one piece, relatively. Clearly, he’d expected to find her dead too. She was almost offended, except that she very nearly had been.

Preston edged to the other side of her. Eyeing the dead Supermutant. “Good job.” He told her firmly. “But we’re not out of it yet. You need that arm working, let the General set it.” He told her and Sam almost bristled at the command. But then she realised they both thought she was in shock and were trying to snap her out of it. Maybe she was, she probably looked shaken half choked mess though. It took Dogmeat slipping out of her grasp and giving her a nuzzle and lick that eventually realise she’d spaced out so much that they’d gotten her to her feet without so much as jostling her. Or maybe they had and she was so damn full of adrenalin she hadn’t felt a thing.

“Just do it.” She said firmly, looking pointedly at Jack and then away whilst Preston and he manoeuvred her into a position. She didn’t protest when Preston held out an inhaler and she let him expel a puff into her mouth as it hit the back of her throat. It rushed down her airways dissolving into her tissues and in moments everything felt very far away and disconnected. If this was what Mama Murphy wanted to feel, she could understand it for a moment, it was certainly a relief from where she’d been. It might have been minutes, or seconds, she had no idea. She watched with detachment in apparent slow motion as Jack grasped her arm and Preston’s hand pressed firmly against her back and together they moved sharply and suddenly. There was a pop that sounded more like a crack and a muted roar of pain that made her want to vomit. Then the world came back into focus and she was gasping and panting as agony raced across her entire arm and her blessedly numb hand remembered how much everything above it hurt.  
“Ow.” She groaned. Preston whipped out the needle she recognised as a stimpack and she hissed as he stuck her shoulder with it. Apparently it had short term tissue regenerative properties if used immediately, gave the healing a jump start if she was lucky she’d not loose any sensation or movement in the arm and the ligaments which she was certain that bastard thing had torn would knit back together. She hadn’t quite believed it was capable of so much until she’d seen the medic use it to repair one of the farm hands when he’d accidentally almost taken off his own damn food with a machete back in Sanctuary. A day later the same guy had been up and hobbling around with just a small scar for his troubles.

“Better?” Jack asked and she grimaced.

“Wonderful.” She growled. “Can we go now. Before something else tries to murder me horribly.” She wasn’t joking.

His hand went out to her trembling ones, as if to comfort her and she pulled her trembling hand away. “Not right now.” She told him, she didn't want to be touched gently, she didn't want to feel anything at all. They were barely through the home depot section, they'd yet to reach the food and her rucksack was already full of the reasons Jack had also been right about coming in here in the first goddamn place. She didn't want to need to be in here and yet she knew they weren’t leaving yet. God... they were highly trained soldiers with years of frontline combat experience. That the average settler might attempt to knock over a place like this was terrifying.

“Sam baby.” He tried and she gave him a look and he nodded dropping her eyes, they had been enough battles together to know that sometimes a soldier just needed a certain headspace to survive. “All right Colonel. Let’s get it together, one more floor to search and we’re golden.” He told her firmly and it was what she needed right now, to just be a solider, following her commanding officer, not a frightened woman who'd seen enough gore and horror to last several lifetimes. If they got out of this, she worried she might never want to pick up a gun and go charging through the gate into the unknown again. And then there were the nights when she worried she'd get back and still want to do just that, the idea of not having a weapon, of not killing something making her shudder. She wasn't sure what either said about her state of mind but she worried neither was good. 

If they did get back, they’d both probably need to spend far too much time talking to a shrink. But then getting out of this place, this World, was looking like a fools hope at best. How the hell was she supposed to magic them out of this god forsaken place when even a basic supply run could turn into this!

They walked away from that place and Sam couldn't help but feel like she'd left a part of herself behind. The part that had never seen those things, never even imagined them. Now they'd live in her nightmares, whenever she closed her eyes she'd see it. Smell it. Feel it under her feet and beneath her nails. She'd know inescapably what human meat smelled like when cooked. What the rancid breath of the creature that ate it felt like as it bore down on her, desperate to make her scream. The sound her arm made as it was almost pulled from her body…. she shuddered going cold all over.

“I hate this place.” she rasped, refusing to cry in case she let the dam break and all the misery of this world and her pity for it come flowing out. Jack slid his fingers into hers and she accepted them for a moment with a squeeze back. Now they were outside she felt she could accept a moments comfort.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know it could be that bad.” He admitted quietly and she heard the same horror in his voice as she felt in hers, and in some weird fucked up way, it was easier to know that the big bad black ops General had lost his lunch too. But then no one had trained them for this… how could they?

Preston was ahead of them Dogmeat walking along beside him and Sam nodded. “The Dog stays.” She sighed and squeezed his fingers tightly. Not so long ago she'd have dropped his hand, for fear of someone seeing, or for being so obvious in her feelings. Hell, for needing to hold someone's hand had once been reason enough to force her to let go. Now she clung to it like the lifeline it was.   
“He saved my life too.” She added needlessly, Jack had seen what the Dog had done as he’d gone crashing down a level. She’d wondered if that would be the last moment she saw him alive, after all she’d had no idea what was down there either, if they’d even survive the fall. In that moment, she’d felt utterly numb at the idea of it. Like it wouldn’t compute.

Jack's grip became almost too tight. “That thing, it blindsided me....” Sam nodded, he thought he'd let her down. Of course, because if it went wrong in battle it was automatically his fault according to Jack O’Neill. Which was ridiculous, there was no right way for battles to go out here, either you lived or you didn't. At least that’s how it felt to her, tactics rarely came into it when you were fighting insanity.

“Don’t be an idiot.” she admonished more gently than her words suggested. “It wasn’t your fault. It's not like we're fighting enemy soldiers. They don't have predictable movement patterns or hell... brains half the time out here. Literally.” She admitted, thinking of the ghouls. “There was no logical reason for it to lunge like that.” She offered trying to console him, Jack wasn’t normally one to question decisions, he made it and stuck to it. Clearly, he was right and when it came to her, he lost that objectivity.

“Yeah well its brainless manoeuvre worked.” Jack pointed out. “He got us out the way and had you dead to rights.”

“And now it’s dead. So on the whole it was a shit tactic.” She snapped. “This whole damn world feels like that, one shit decision after another. Populated by monsters that prey on anyone less monstrous than them!” She admitted.

Jack tugged her to a stop for a moment and she winced, her arm still a little tender at the jostling but not far off back to normal, god bless stimpacks she thought. Jack paused for a moment, eyeing her shoulder his lips twisting into a grimace, but he didn’t apologise, his fingers loosened slightly though in their painful grasp.  
“Sam. That's every world, every time that ever existed and with humans in it. You've just described the human condition and the food chain. We used to be on top... now we're not. Circle of life.”   
He was so cold, so matter of fact and she realised he was quite possibly angrier than she'd ever seen him. Way worse than the time she'd locked herself in the basement with Cassie as she threatened to go nuclear. Or when he’d caught her jerry rigging that water sanitiser with Sturgess, he was practically vibrating with rage. He turned as if to walk away and she wasn’t having that, they needed to talk about this.

“Hey...” She grabbed his arm, forcing him back to look at her as he tried to stalk away his movements stiff and controlled. “It was your stupid idea to go in there, so don't you dare get mad at me for it!” She threatened, knowing when he was gearing up for a fight, they'd had them enough after a bad decision on both sides.

“I haven't said a word!” He snarled. Sam spun on him and jabbed him hard in the chest with her good right arm.

“And that Jack O'Neill is how I know how pissed you are. Say it.” she tilted her chin up, daring him. “Say what you've wanted to since it happened.” She bullied and he got very still. His eyes narrowed at her. She damn well knew what he wanted to say, she'd known it the minute it went South because he liked to pick apart her actions after a battle, it was almost second nature.

“I told you to stay behind me and watch the right flank.” He said, quietly, but it was blistering for the power behind it and Sam almost shivered, turning away from him and those damn eyes that bore down into her soul. Damning her for making him worry it seemed.

“And I told you I didn't want to go in there.” She admitted finally. “But we're alive, my arms knitting itself back onto my body nicely, our packs our full, and we both have some wonderful memories to take home with us. So lets call it FUBAR and move on!” She jabbed at his chest with her finger one last time and was too slow when he lunged and caught it using it to drag her bodily into him. She hissed in pain at the sudden thump of her chest against his, her tender arm jostling.

“You don't get to fucking die on me Carter. You hear me!” He hissed against her ear and pulled back to press a kiss that was more teeth than tongue to her mouth that startled her for a moment before she gave back as good as she got, until she tasted blood and he retreated suddenly. Staring wildly back at her from dark fathomless eyes, his breath coming out in short angry bursts. Her eyes were on his lips, she wanted to kiss him again she realised, startled that she could be so furious and attracted to him at the same time, but she didn't because he was an ass and her arm hurt again.

“Fine.” she snapped.

“Fine.” he growled. Then he spun on his heel and whistled for Dogmeat to walk ahead with him, whilst she was left to catch up to Preston, who staunchly didn't mention the shouting, or the bloodied lip she knew would scab over with the impression of Jack's teeth. 

She hated this place. Hated what it was turning them into. There was a moment, a dark spiralling moment then that she let herself wonder again, if this was 'real'. The thought of Fifth rising to the surface when she was at her weakest. It seemed like no matter how many times she convinced herself, and thought she’d moved past it, that it would rear its ugly head again when her world view was shaken. The damn notion wouldn't die and left her feeling sick with the thought and strangely relieved at the same time, because in some ways, maybe the idea of a false reality was better than this. Which as she chased the idea around her head, was what convinced her to let the thought go this time at least. After all his goal had been to keep her, somehow placing her in a nightmare scenario where all she wanted to do was flee from it, was hardly going to work in his favour. And it would be a demonstration of skill and complexity in world building far beyond anything he’d shown her before, his puerile fantasy paled in comparison. It was almost a ludicrous suggestion. But still she knew it would be back, an irrational fear sent out to stalk her relentlessly and she touched her fingers to her forehead once more. 

But it ultimately came down to how far down the rabbit hole she wanted to go. Because if this wasn’t real and she was still stuck inside her own damn head on that fucking ship, encased in replicators, her body used to his own sick ends without her knowledge... held there like some damn prize on display. Then Jack wasn’t jack. And she’d willingly fallen in love with the enemy.

Maybe she should have taken the padded cell option she considered grimly and just confessed her crazy to the shrinks and done her duty to declare her mental state compromised. But it was too late for that. Crazy or not beforehand, she was starting to suspect that she wasn’t going to get anymore sane out here

That night as they set up camp at yet another Red Rocket truck stop – because the whole world seemed littered with them – and she disappeared around back to relieve herself, distracted, she was surprised by a hand on her hip and another on her lower back as a body pressed into her firmly. Her natural instinct to panic and fight back was halted by the sudden overwhelming smell of him as he pressed her front crushingly into the wall. She used the momentum and his loose grip to spin around, not wanting to be pinned. She had a moment where they were face on and she stared back at him, her breathing sharp and heavy with her shock. He practically radiated intensity and heat, his fingers digging into her back and her hip as he pressed in close until every part of her was crushed against his chest it seemed and she was staring up into his face. His stubbled jaw scratching along her cheek. He hadn’t touched her with real intent since that night on the roof… mostly from lack of opportunity, but she could feel the intent against her hip now.

He ran his hand up to her shoulder and pressed on it lightly, but hard enough that had it still hurt she would have cried out. As it was, she felt nothing but a mild twinge and she stared back balefully at him feeling irritation and desire flashing through her almost indistinguishably. She wasn't sure if she wanted to punch him or kiss him. His lips quirked as if he could read her inner debate and enjoyed either idea and she surged forward, crashing her mouth against his not much caring for style, just that she could taste him. His tongue fought back and she nipped and gasped as he started to kiss a line down her neck, the bites just that touch too hard, his grip too tight... and it was exactly what she wanted. In that moment, she honestly wasn't sure she cared if this wasn't real. Because it felt real... and it was exactly what she wanted, who she wanted.

She all but clawed at the front of his pants, shoving and unzipping without a care for the contents until she had her palm wrapped firmly around the already long hard length of him and his surprise was clear as he bucked into her firm touch, groaning against the skin of her throat. Clearly, he'd thought he'd be the aggressor in this. But as usual he'd read her perfectly, read them. They needed this, needed an end to the sexual tension that had built all day and was pulled taut like a rubber band between them, worse now that they knew what it was like to be together than the gentle burn she’d lived with for far too long. Now it was like they’d lit a match and her every desire was set on fire for him at the barest brush of his skin. There was no right time out here, they might die at any minute and she for one wasn't going to lie there bleeding out, knowing that she hadn’t grasped every opportunity to be with him now that she could.

“It shouldn't be like this.” He grunted kissing her hard and pushing her back into the wall as he shoved her pants down around her ankles in one furious movement with as little delicacy as she'd shown him. She wasn’t sure if he meant ‘it shouldn’t be like this’ in general between them, or just this time, but she lost her train of thought as he slid his palm along her bare thigh possessively for a moment, before yanking her leg up and holding it firmly over his hip. Whatever his concerns she didn’t share them as she pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to help and hooked her leg further around him to draw him against her nakedness.

“You were thinking what... wine, rose petals, a cosy bed?” She smirked and then gasped suddenly as she felt him pressed up between her legs. He tugged her hand away from his length exerting an expert pressure on her wrist to break her grip, as she felt him bump her clit with the head. 

“Angry,” He rasped, “We shouldn't be doing this so damn angry.” He growled and he slammed into her hard and sharp as she bucked violently crying out at the sudden assault, but she was wet, and had been since she'd been forced to stare at his retreating back and feel the sting of her lip every time she moved her mouth. Again, she was surprised by just how big he was and the thought came unbidden that he was bigger than Pete, and she was right back there at angry too; regretting all the time wasted, time they might not have out here. 

She clamped her thighs around his hips and lifted herself enough to slam back down onto him flexing her inner muscles and making him gasp at the sensation as he slammed his fist into the crumbling wall beside her head. She smirked, pleased and full of adrenalin and pulsing need as she rocked again and again over him grinding down and squeezing hard. 

“Fuck Sam.” he hissed closing his eyes for a minute as he tried to still against her onslaught and she leant forwards to take his ear in her teeth and torment the lobe as he arched beneath her, bucking his hips again until he was taking her hard and fast up against a damn wall with their pants around their ankles, where anything could sneak up on them.

“Fuck me.” She breathed and he complied. “Fuck me like we almost died today Jack.” she added, the 'like we might die tomorrow' remained unsaid but she knew he heard it when he bit her sharply on the neck as he pistoned his hips into her like he was twenty years younger than she knew he was. And fuck it was good... and she hated that it had taken so long, all that waiting and wanting and it didn’t matter one jot now that he was her CO, or ex-CO, as he slid his rock-hard dick in and out of her grasping channel. She dropped her hand between her legs and played with her own clit the little nub hard as she savoured the feeling of his teeth and tongue tracing a path down her chest as he searched for more skin. 

“You’re not dying on me, you understand Colonel.” He rasped his tongue tracing the shell of her ear as he drove deep and hard pressing his pelvis against her furiously rubbing fingers until she was trembling, her knees going to jelly as she pulsed around him. She thought it was telling that the one time they’d come together to fuck each other after the near disaster of a battle, that they’d both slip back into the comfort of the military. But then he’d always known what buttons to push, and her rank, the same rank that used to be his... he seemed to know the secret thrill she’d gotten whenever she heard him call her that. Like it was their secret, like the way his fingers had brushed her skin the barest fraction as he'd pinned his own silver oak’s on her. All her life working to achieve something, her career and in the end it hadn't meant anything, she'd never reach full bird Colonel, or General, here and now her rank was pointless... except not to him, and not to her. And that meant everything. 

“Yes Sir.” That was all it took that one word, that one word she'd always used to convey the depth of her feelings and her admiration for him, and she was coming hard and wet between them both with a gasping moan as it took her by surprise.

“That’s it Sam baby.” He hummed, then he spun her around, his dick sliding out as he bent her at the waist and gripped her hips tightly to hold her up as she raised her good arm and pressed her hand to the wall to keep her balance. Wordlessly following his non-verbal instructions as always, as he sunk into her again from behind; barely losing momentum as their skin slapped together the sound almost filthy in the still night. 

“This is real Sam. Me and you here and now, alive, after all this shit. Just you and me.” He told her calmly, his voice straining with the effort as he slid in and out of her with assurance. Seeming to want to brand the words inside her as he pushed hard and deep, burying himself to the hilt. He knew… knew what she needed, knew where her fucking head was still at and the doubts that would have resurfaced and she’d never been more grateful for that. Or turned on, to have a partner know her so intimately. She straightened enough to reach back and wrap her hand around the back of his head, drawing his mouth down to kiss her ignoring the strain of the angle as he increased his rhythm. This was what it was to be alive, to care, even as she hated the life she was being forced to live, because at least with him it meant something. 

It didn’t take her long to come apart around him again, her whole body felt like a livewire and he'd literally stuck something in her socket, because she was one huge over sensitised mess at his touch, a touch she'd denied herself like this when she’d so desperately needed it. How many battles how much comfort or catharsis could she have gained from this act with him over the years had she not been so afraid to claim what she wanted? She consoled herself with that thought as she gasped and clenched around him, not able to hide her choked sob at the emotion another orgasm evoked, tore free. But at least now he’d know, utterly and completely after this, just how bad she had it for him. Even broken and furious she'd come for him at his barest touch. 

She stood bent over and panting hard, silent tears streaming down her cheeks half in relief and half in spiteful fury as her body moved to Jack's rhythm, “Sam.” Jack's plaintive plea broke her, she could hear everything in it, all his hopes, his love, his promises that she wasn't alone in this, they could be in this glorious mess of muddled emotions of love and desire and regret together. He grunted loud and harsh as he buried his head in her shoulder and bucked his hips wildly for a moment until she could feel him seeping out down her legs. 

He pressed a kiss to the shoulder she’d injured earlier today which now seemed to bear no evidence except a little stiffness and remained there breathing sharply for a moment, his weight against her becoming painful as he slowly released her hips from the death grip he'd had on them. She wondered if she'd have an imprint of his fingers around her hips. She heard his pause, as he dropped to retrieve his pants and the snick of his zip, as she pulled hers up too, not looking back, but she knew what he was thinking. He had that same twisted look of guilt and relief on his face, this was catharsis she reasoned, however unhealthy to take their feelings out on each other this way. It was almost like they were punishing each other for being stupid enough to fall in love, especially out here after all this time, where every day might be their last.

She closed her eyes and covered her mouth in silent shock. Fuck. They were going to get each other killed, this was why frat regs existed between soldiers in a battlefield, because once emotion got in the way you couldn’t think straight and make rational decisions. He’d made a bad decision today, one he probably wouldn’t have made if he’d had a cooler head because he didn’t care so damn much about her.

Her feelings were playing out all over her damn face she was sure as Jack stalked forward and took her face in his hands and kissed her soundly for a few moments, and she closed her eyes almost melting into the sensation as her anger bled away with his touch, when only moments ago it had ignited it. His tongue swept into her mouth conveying everything and she sobbed against it, holding the back of his head and not letting him retreat until she was done with him. He pulled back gently as her claiming of him slowed, dropping a gentle kiss to each wet eyelid at odds with the sharp memory of how he’d just roughly taken her up against a damn wall; until they stood with their foreheads pressed together, just breathing in one another.

“I love you.” He declared fiercely unapologetic for it and for the cost it might exact on them both. He pressed one more searing kiss to her neck, biting down just enough to let her know the feeling might linger for a while. Then he was gone, stalking away back to the campfire she could smell burning and the sounds of life she'd been ignoring for the last few minutes. But that didn’t matter, because she’d been momentarily startled her hand against her lips in shock. 

He’d said it. Actually said the words. 

Oh he’d been saying it to her in various ways since they’d first gotten here and a long time before that she suspected, but that was the first time those three little words had actually made it out of his lips.

She felt a sudden flush of colour, she wasn't much of an exhibitionist, except she'd just fucked Jack out in the open with Preston and the damn dog in earshot. It seemed to be becoming a habit. She sighed and ran her hands through her lengthening hair. Preston wouldn't say anything, too polite, but that didn't make their behaviour any less crude. It might be the end of the world but there were still some social taboos if you wanted to call yourself part of civilisation. Then again what other options were there out here and she refused to have another damn thing to regret when it came to him. Besides Jack wouldn’t care, just like he hadn’t on that rooftop or the two times since he’d slipped his hands inside her pants, stolen moments with his mouth fused to hers. It would have almost been romantic except that it was all set to the backdrop of the end of civilisation. Or God knows, maybe that was romantic.

She let her back press against the wall as she collected herself for a moment cleaning up the best she could. It was something she hadn't considered until that first night they’d spent together, that sex without proper facilities to wash up in was a new fresh hell. It also meant she'd be sticky and stinking of sex when they rocked up at Diamond City tomorrow. She just had to hope that with the general stink of this world and everyone in it, her unwashed state wouldn't even register. She reached for her pack and pulled out the purified water, it was a waste but screw it.

Sam washed up quickly being sparing with the water and emerged from the back of the Red Rocket, not keen to be alone down there too long. She lifted her head and looked up through the gloom as the faintest outline of the highway literally about 30feet high, half in ruin like an ancient spine across the landscape, it was barely visible now, the night had fallen so quickly. But it was there, Diamond City was apparently somewhere under that towering freeway; they'd made it more or less physically intact, but she wasn't certain yet how much of herself she'd left along the way.

Sam climbed up to the roof, where Jack and Preston had set up camp, they’d even managed to get the dog up there and he was curled up in a spot by the campfire, his head in Jack’s lap. It wasn’t a bad spot, Preston had been right, the top of the Red Rocket was a pretty secure location, even if it was disturbing to hear all manner of shit crawling around beneath them or to see the giant metal rocket sat on the roof inches from them. She’d checked, it was just a statue, but you couldn’t be too careful out here. 

Sam realised that she was actually feeling kind of homesick for Sanctuary again and the relative security offered by her Sentry Bot, the turrets and the minefield. Nothing said secure like high explosives after all. She was considering that maybe having a robot with them wouldn’t have been the worst idea, even if it was just to take the nightshifts. But Codsworth was really the only ‘travelling’ option and given as he barely shut up and Jack didn’t especially tolerate him it had been a non-starter of an idea and the Sentry Bot was too temperamental, and slow.

From the roof sat in the shadow of giant metal rocket painted cherry red she had a good vantage point. But there wasn’t much to see through the dark. Out in the distance there were a few campfires and the faint spots of a few electric lights. Sturgess had told her it was the one thing he’d struggled with out here, how dark the nights were, but then he’d come from Vegas and he said that it was still the City that never slept. Its skyline bright and busy as ever. Diamond City she could make out faintly, its muted glow from within the stadium more subtle. She glanced over at Jack who was a study in avoidance, his entire frame tense as he glared into the fire, absently petting Dogmeat. If she didn’t have the evidence clinging to her body or imprinted in teeth and finger marks she’d have had a hard time believing that anything had happened down there at all between them. Now or ever. He’d always been good at that, shutting her out, compartmentalising his feelings for her. It seemed this last shock might have forced that behaviour again. 

Preston was as she suspected studiously avoiding looking at them both, his feet up on what looked like a wooden deck chair, apparently a few people camped up here enough to have started to leave things behind. He had his rifle in his lap, his clear intention to take first watch. There was a chess board and a little patio table that he and Jack looked to have half heartedly set out.

Sam sighed and decided to bite the bullet. Jack seemed to be expecting her to say something, maybe even still be mad if his wary expression as she approached him meant anything, but at least he wasn’t totally able to ignore her as she sat down. And because she didn’t want him to be able to ignore her, hated the way it made her feel, she sat down behind him, wrapping her legs around his and crushing her body flat against his back as she wrapped her arms around his chest, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. His hands instantly covered hers and she felt him almost sag back against her in clear relief that she wasn’t going to tear chunks out of him. She smiled and pressed a kiss to his neck then his temple as he let out a sigh. His little impromptu rendezvous had done its job, the tension seemed to have bled out of her along with the heart stopping fear she’d been feeling from their close encounter with the Supermutants and yet another brush with death.

“So, I say I love you and I get to be the little spoon?” He rasped and she squeezed where her hand rested on his chest, snuggling closer in answer.

“You love being the little spoon.” She muttered, having noted that she’d ended up spooning him as often as he had her these last few weeks.

He shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a simple guy, when a woman offers to wrap herself around you, it would be ungentlemanly to decline.”

“Gallant as always.”

“I like to think so.”

“I love you too.” She pressed the words into the skin of his neck, closing her eyes and just holding him close for a moment as she let herself feel the weight of her almost death washing over her. Again, the thought from earlier hit her, all these years together, all they’d been through and survived, despite how vulnerable it had the potential to make them; she couldn’t help but think how much easier it would have been if they’d been able to take comfort in each other like this back then.


	11. 81 Ways To Not Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re-upload as I'd inexplicably missed some content out 'Donapples' - no idea how that got lost in the draft.  
> \---------------

“I’m getting a signal.” Sam said suddenly and Jack paused, glancing through his scope at the surroundings, waiting. “It’s Vault-tec.”

He turned back then and raised an eyebrow at her. “Here?” She didn’t miss the note of irritation, Jack was on mission, and currently that was to get to Diamond City. He never had appreciated sight seeing trips.

Sam pointed. “About 5 clicks that way.”

“So, mark it on the map and we’ll come back some other time.” Jack half ordered and she turned and gave him the eyebrow this time.

“Jack… this is an active signal. Someone’s still down there.” Sam replied a note of irritation creeping into her own voice.

“Sam.” He snapped and his eyes flashed dangerously. “If they’re alive, then there’s a good chance they’ve been that way for 200 years. I highly doubt that’s going to change in the near future.” He growled. “You know what would change the situation, us… opening it up and sticking our noses in where it doesn’t belong.”

Sam breathed in sharply through her nose, counting to ten. “It’s a distress signal Jack. I’d say somethings already changed.” He ducked his head and swept his hand over his brow.

“Sam, Jesus I made a bad call on that Supermarket. We’re a few clicks out of the City…” She heard the concern there, the wafer-thin hold on his control. She knew better than to poke the bear with a stick, especially after his blow up yesterday, but she wasn’t going to just leave a bunch of people stuck in a tin can underground in trouble. And she didn’t think he really would, but he gripped her arm tightly.

“Sam?” He rasped almost a plea, and she reached up and caught his cheek in one hand. She knew what it was that was tearing him up inside. He didn’t want to take the risk again so soon… didn’t want to risk her. He wanted a moment, just one, for themselves. She felt it too, but he was missing the bigger picture, which was what he’d always feared would happen. Perhaps he was right to have kept them buried all these years after all. 

“I know Jack. But this is who we are, the minute we stop being that then what was the point of surviving?”

“General… the Minutemen don’t ignore a cry for help.” Preston reminded him quietly.

“You think I don’t know that.” Jack hissed back at him. “Hell, I’ve been saving people since well before you were born.” He muttered, sounding like the miserable old coot he’d always threatened to be and Sam smiled, that meant he was definitely going. She turned and started walking in the direction of the signal. Jack followed wordlessly, with Preston taking up the rear and Dogmeat cantering along beside her his knowing eyes on her that she studiously avoided. The Dog was loyal she’d give it that, he clearly knew they were about to head in trouble and he was coming anyway.  
The location to the Vault whilst not especially protected was off the beaten track. They had to clear out some local wildlife but nothing too insidious. But it was inside some sort of cave structure, it looked like an entrance to a mineshaft, there were no signs persee just a big black opening. They’d proceeded inside with Jack on point and hit the metal ramping she was familiar with from the last time. There was even an access console she recognised from where she’d found her PipBoy. 

She stood looking down from the scaffolding at the vast circular metal door that was sealed tightly shut.

“Do we knock?” Jack asked looking down at it with irritation.

Sam rolled her eyes and went to the panel on the console. Pulling up the connection lead she plugged her PipBoy in. Instantly the command prompt for ‘Vault Door Remote Access’ flashed up on her monitor and she ran the program.

There was a burst of static and a young mans voice… barely out of his teens she suspected squawked across the console at her.  
“Hold it right there, this is Officer Edwards, Vault 81 Security. I don’t know how you got your hands on a working PipBoy, but you better start talking!”

Sam glanced down at the radio dials on the console and flipped the transmit button.  
“Hi. I’m Sam Carter, my husband and I are out of Vault 111. I picked up your signal, thought you might need a hand?” It was generic enough, she’d learnt the hard way not to reveal everything at first, particularly if there was something happening down there, it might even be some sort of ‘silent alarm’ for all she knew and she didn’t want to inadvertently get someone in trouble. Jack’s hand brushed her back as he walked past, his little recognition of her calling him her husband and she smiled ruefully. Realising if they kept pretending that they might have to actually make good on it one day.

A new voice came over the radio. A woman this time. “This is Overseer McNamara. Given as you have a working PipBoy I’m inclined to believe you. If you’re here to help, that’s good, we operate an exchange system here for entry, you scratch our back we scratch yours, namely with entry.”

Sam glanced at Jack. He leant closer to the radio and she pointed to the switch. “Let’s hear it then, what do you want?” he flicked off the radio and looked to her. “They don’t sound all that distressed.” He pointed out, but his curiosity was peaked, she could tell by the set of his jaw that now because they didn’t want him in there, he was going to get in.

“Straight to the point, I like that. I’ll be equally blunt. Get me three fusion core’s and we’ll roll out the red-carpet welcome wagon for you.”

Jack looked at her, he had some idea what they were worth, they both did. It was a little steep given as they had no idea what they were walking into… or why. Barter and trade were literally the only things they had going for them in Diamond City so they couldn’t afford to waste their resources. Jack looked about to respond when Sam pressed a hand to his chest and moved up to the radio. 

“Let me.” She insisted and he held out his hand inviting her to give it her best. “I have a counter offer. One fusion core… and the means to recharge it.”  
There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Now that’s a mighty fine offer, but utter hokum. Even Wastelanders know a fusion core’s a one shot only deal, once its depleated that’s all it’s got.”

Sam smirked. “I was a military engineer before the war… frozen in a cryopod. The military had access to all sorts of tech. No way no how did we run those Power Armour frames off a 1 shot battery. I can do it and I can show you how, no more bartering required.”

There was silence on the other end of the line and Sam glanced at Jack who shrugged. Then the alarm went off and the Vault door started to open the service lights flashing as the huge circular structure slid open.

“Come on in then. But don’t make any sudden moves. Your weapons will be collected at the door I suggest you comply.” The turrets which Preston and Jack had their eyes on seemed to track them as they moved. She’d not seen turrets like it, Vault 111 didn’t have them, these were fixed up into the sealing, some sort of bubble-like domes to them with a weapon. Discreet and heavily armoured she imagined. Probably laser. The threat wasn’t idle then as they made there way down and inside the Vault door. 

Officer Edwards greeted them and Sam took a good look at the first ‘actual’ Vault Dweller she’d met. 

“Nice suit.” Jack quipped. The blue skin tight number with Vault 81 embossed on the back in gold was identical to the one they’d found in Vault 111 which on occasion Jack wore to sleep in. He’d said it was surprisingly warm, yet breathable. She’d thought it looked like some sort of carbon fibre mesh, quite resistant to heat and cold, maybe even some energy weapons.

Sam stepped up beside him and he gave them both a once over with a whistle. “Wow, you guys certainly smell better than the types we normally get wanting to trade. Even got all your teeth.” He grinned and waved them over to a huge security cabinet.

“Weapons down.” He instructed, strangely enough he was happy for them to keep the blades, the ones he saw at any rate and she wasn’t about to volunteer the rest, he also hadn’t been interested in the pistol, waving that away, but the rifles they had to give up and any explosives or grenades. She’d handed them over a little nervously, weapons were more important than ever out here and she didn’t like the idea of being unarmed. 

“Preston.” Jack turned back to the dark skinned man. “Why don’t you go wait outside the Vault, with your weapons and the Dog.” They shared a non-verbal and Preston nodded. Sam understood the instinct. One of them should stay back fully armed in case the others needed rescuing.  
“I’ll get you a souvenir.” Jack promised. 

Preston glanced at it, and at the guy dressed in his neat blue suit and combat helmet and snorted, to be fair he probably would have blown the whole ‘vault dwellers’ idea and they didn’t want the people here to think otherwise, Sam and Jack had gone this long passing as Vault Dwellers.  
“You better. And some purified water. Vaults are good for that.” He declared as Sam handed him a radio, Preston nodded and tipped his hat at the Officer before making his way back out of the slowly closing Vault door before it sealed him in, Dogmeat gave Jack one serious headbump into his knees before following at Preston’s command.

“Good dog.” Jack said affectionately, before rubbing his hands together and standing there non-plussed. “So, you got a tour-guide or something?”

Turns out they did. A boy with a shock of red hair, named Austin fleeced them of 5 caps for the privilege. To be fair Sam thought it was worth it, he showed them all the basics and their polite if somewhat surprised first look at the facilities could be masked with gentle indulgent questions that a grown up might have paused at from ‘other Vault Dwellers’. Like how the Atrium worked, and what the Overseer’s role was daily.

“This is my class room. We learn all sorts of stuff in here. Mostly from before, you know when there were other places to go. I’m training to be an engineer. I heard you were one?”

Sam smiled at him as he started to tell her about his fascination with the power generators and how he liked to go and sit in those rooms and follow around the maintenance guys, learning what all the tools did. He was a sweet kid Sam decided, and the first child they’d come across in the Wasteland. 

“So you do this a lot?” he asked, “Greet the Wastelanders that come in?” there was a note of concern there that Sam didn’t miss.

“Oh no. They don’t let them in, most people just trade outside the Vault Door. I heard them say you were from Vault 111. What was it like there, did you have Atriums like ours to grow food in? Where are your Vault suits, don’t you wear them outside? What’s the Waste’s like does it smell as bad as everyone says it will? How many things have you killed out there? Are the bugs as big as they say?”

Jack nodded, the kid spoke quick and rattled off questions back at them, apparently it was better to let him talk she realised with a smirk as Jack did his best to answer.

Sam gave Jack a nod and detached from the ‘tour’ as Jack sat down perched on a barrel and started to tell the boy about the wildlife out there who was staring at him with wrapped fascination. She heard Austin’s declaration a few minutes later of, “Okay you have to come tell my whole class this stuff. Come on. I bet our teacher Miss Katy will be so pleased to meet you!” Glancing back Jack was being led away by the hand, his expression of bemused concern as to what he’d just volunteered for staying with her as she stifled a snort of amusement. Jack O’Neill… collector of stray dogs and stray children apparently. 

It became apparent to Sam as she wandered and smiled politely at everyone that passed and introduced themselves that no one seemed obviously in distress. She glanced at her PibPoy, it was still sending out the signal, which meant somewhere, someone in here had set it off. Unless of course it had been triggered years ago, maybe even at the start of the war? She had to work on the assumption for now though, that there might be something else going on here, until she’d proven otherwise. And honestly, it was kind of nice to walk through the clean sterile concrete corridors. It was a lot like home she realised, or the base, only brighter than the grey concrete they’d favoured there.

It was as she was exploring the Atrium and the marvel of mostly automated technology that was that Overseer McNamara found her. “Please, call me Gwen.” She held her hand out and Sam shook it politely.

“Sam.” She returned.

“Your husband is currently entertaining the school children with tales of the Wastelands. And a couple from before the War. Charming man.” She admitted and Sam didn’t sense anything but honest surprise in her statement, but eyes were sharp. She swept them over her body and took note of what she’d chosen to leave on her person, including the pistol which the Officer at the gate had clearly not judged as a threat, but the Overseer clearly thought that might have been a mistake.

Sam smiled politely, “That’s one word for him.” She admitted.

“Would you walk with me, I’d be happy to give you the grand tour so to speak.” Gwen offered, Sam agreed because it seemed like the easiest way to search for the source of this ‘SOS’ signal and see an operational vault up close.

“So… you said you were military?” Gwen pressed, clearly wanting more information, Sam didn’t imagine she’d got much out of Jack who would have bene politely irreverent as he focused on the ‘distraction’ of the kids. But she didn’t seem all that hostile, unlike the looks she’d been getting and the muttered whispers of ‘outsiders’ she’d heard from a few of the residents, mostly Gwen seemed curious.

Sam smiled as unthreateningly as possible. “Air force. I was a Colonel.”

“A Colonel, that’s impressive and your husband was he military too?”

“An honest to God General.” Sam smiled trying to make that sound somehow less threatening. 

Gwen actually stopped, the young woman looked faintly impressed but then Sam wondered if she understood something of what it was to have to bear the burden of responsibility, she couldn’t imagine it was easy running a place like this. Sam was starting to have a hard time seeing this woman as a morally bankrupt Vault-tec employee.

“Wow, I mean, he just seems so good with the children, for a solider?” Gwen admitted and hastily looked away at Sam’s slightly affronted look that somehow anyone in the military mgith make a bad parent, hastily she resumed their walk. Although to be fair Sam supposed that maybe a man that looked as gruff as Jack wouldn’t naturally be viewed in a ‘child-friendly’ way.

“I think he gets on so well with kids because he’s just an overgrown one himself.” Sam added smiling and trying to defuse any tension that Gwen seemed to fear she’d inadvertently created. 

“Fortunate that you both made it out together though, were you married before or is that recent?” Sam hesitated a moment, there didn’t seem any malice or underlying agenda in that question perhaps it was just idle conversation, Sam imagined with the same people down here to talk to it must be hard to keep entertained. Speaking of she wondered just how many were down here?

“It’s a fairly recent thing, he was my CO before that.” Gwen frowning at the term, “I have to ask,” she pressed on, wanting some information herself. “Just how many people do you have down here?” Sam asked, noting yet another security guard and passing several maintenance staff.

“There were 66 at last count. We obviously have to entertain some fairly strict population controls for obvious reasons. We simply don’t have the resources for more, although this vault as I understand it was built to house up to 200 at any one time through its various levels. We have no use for those at the moment and have cut them off, focussing our efforts on maintaining just the structures and population we have is proving challenging enough.”

Sam considered offering her services and paused, they had their own plans, perhaps she could help out a little but she couldn’t make any commitments and looking around this place, whilst on the surface it seemed to be running, she’d passed enough terminals and bowed structures to realise that they’d been putting band aids on this place for years. What it needed was major surgery. “So that’s why you trade with outsiders?”

“Yes. It is fairly recent, we first opened the Vault doors about 10 years ago, my predecessor faced some stern opposition from the residents, but they simply don’t understand that if we don’t start to gain resources, both food and supplies that we are unable to source ourselves, we will die down here. Fresh meat for example has been an absolute god send, I can’t tell you what it was like to have a steak for the first time in my life.”

She was grinning like a kid and Sam couldn’t help but beam at her. “Look, I can’t promise anything, but we have a fairly well established supply route that we’ve been working on around neighbouring settlements, farmsteads. All working together, I’ll speak to Jack see if he can add you onto the supply line. There’s a group up North that make the best cheese you’ve ever tasted.”

Gwen gripped her wrist. “Oh that would be… well more than I had hoped for thank you. You think your husband has that much sway though, we haven’t been all too popular with the suppliers I don’t think we quite have the resources they were looking for?” She was clearly wary of accepting too much help or seeming desperate, Sam could relate. They were after all living in a bubble down here, outside must seem terrifying, which it was, but she wasn’t going to frighten her further by telling her that.

Sam looked about, “It may be you can help out in other ways, you look like you could do with some help down here. Jack… well he’s the General of a group called the Minutemen. They’re establishing a community of settlements. Pushing back the raiders and the mutants, trying to make it safer for everyone.”

“My goodness, you have been busy, how long since you awoke?” Gwen looked a little awed and Sam sighed.

“Around 6 months, but it seems like forever, the surface can be a difficult place to live. I’ll admit it was a shock when we found ourselves here. We were frozen before the bombs fell you see, we had no idea what had happened.” Sam admitted and Gwen released her hand, looking sympathetic.

“Yes we knew from the logs of course, but its one thing to know in practice, quite another to open those doors and see the ravaged surface. My goodness what a mess our ancestors made.”

“You say you were frozen before the bombs?” Gwen looked suddenly interested, and Sam realised they’d reached what looked to be a medical bay, “Samantha Carter, this is Dr Forsythe.” She introduced her to a greying man with dark skin and kind eyes.” He held out his hand and Sam shook it.

“Ah the new Outsiders, yes I’d heard that we had some visitors. I hope the majority of the residents aren’t being too rude, we have something of a problem with xenophobia down here I’m afraid a side effect I’m sure of our enforced isolation. We are trying to work on it with the children.” He glanced at Gwen as if awaiting an instruction.

“Samantha and her husband were frozen cryogenically before the bombs fell.” She announced and Dr Forsythe’s eyes widened. 

“Oh, wow, that is remarkable. Would you mind terribly if I took a sample of your blood?”

Sam startled and they both saw it, along with her no doubt uneasy expression at the thought. “Can I ask why you want it?” She’ learnt a long time ago that offering her blood up to anyone was a bad idea, particularly anyone with issues with Xenophobia given the alien protein markers she carried.

“First to ensure that you aren’t carrying any diseases that might be communicable to our residents. But I must confess the second reason is to help me with my research, you see we are an isolated population, genetically speaking as well as socially. We have had a limited gene pool to expand into these last 200 years and I’m concerned that our genetic isolation might have made us, unsuitable for sustained life on the surface, that we may need to diversify if we are ever to hope to survive in the long term. Your DNA markers being almost a baseline if you were of what we should be would be most helpful. We have recent samples from those born in the Commonwealth to compare alongside you see. A number of our current residents were actually once from outside as well.”

Sam swallowed. “I don’t think my DNA would help you all that much.”

The Doctor and Overseer frowned sharing a look with one another.

“You are human… yes?” The Doctor asked carefully, “Not one of these ‘synths’ we’ve heard about?” Gwen gave a double take and Sam cringed.

“I’m not a synth…” She replied with more bite than intended. Before she noticed their surprised looks. “It’s just, I was experimented on, Government experiments I mean, whilst we were sleeping.” She lied, it was almost easy. “I found records. They did something, introduced some foreign element into my DNA. I don’t know what.” She raised her hands at their concerned looks. “It’s not contagious, you can have it, I just, I wouldn’t use me as blueprint or a standard for anything if I were you. So don’t be surprised if the results are a little, weird is all.” She tried not to make it sound too unusual, or threatening. Certainly not ‘I was taken over by an alien parasite with metal in its blood and tortured to death that one time’.

Gwen looked more sympathetic when she’d finished and the Doctor was nodding a little to eagerly. “Yes, well we’d heard that some of the other vaults were used to experiment on people, I can’t say I believed it myself, Vault-tec after all saved our lives for all these years, but I suppose perhaps they had other reasons to build these vaults than just survival.” He sighed, and gestured to the bed. “If you would, I must still make sure that you are not carrying anything that might harm us, we have some quite advanced medicines and antidotes available to us for all manner of diseases, our vault came well stocked in those. I’m not quite sure what they expected us to come in contact with down here, but if there is an outbreak of plague, we have a remedy for that at least!” Sam took that in, the notion of the distress signal from somewhere in the vault sitting alongside that information as well as this relatively ‘normal’ vault setup and sending alarm bells ringing. She didn’t think the Overseer or this Doctor knew any more than they were saying, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t more here to find. 

Easing herself up on the bed she let him draw the blood and scan her over. “My goodness. Your almost completely radiation free, its like you haven’t been on the surface at all?” he exclaimed looking her over. “Did you find some natural source of food to help cleanse you of radiation?”

“Radaway.” She told him. “It’s this medication they have up there, flushes you out. Plus they have some pills to help soak up the radiation I guess before it hits your cells. My PipBoy has been helpful in letting me know when I needed to purge of course.”

The Doctor nodded, placing her vial of blood in his machine and turning back to her. He glanced once more at his scanner and frowned. “You have a foreign body, in your uterus. Would you like me to remove it?”

Sam blinked nervous again. “I do?”

He frowned and turned the scanning device around to show her. “Oh. Its an IUD.” She told him quietly relieved. “Um, back before the war, when I was frozen, that’s what we used to, prevent pregnancy and menstruation in women that were going onto the front lines.” The Doctor looked appalled. 

“That’s practically barbaric. When did you say you were frozen again?”

Sam considered lying, and realised that would probably just get her in deeper and honestly why bother, what did it matter to them, the frozen story was good enough and she had said they’d been in the vault separately to the others. “2005.” She told him firmly and he blinked trying to contain his clear surprise; Gwen looked her up and down sharply as if trying to look for signs that she was nearly 300 years old. “Like I said, we were frozen sometime before the others.”

“Yeah, about 70 years!” Gwen gasped. “My God, you really are out of time and place aren’t you!”

“Well,” The Doctor admitted. “We have something much more advanced, and safer than that now, I would highly recommend you use that instead.” He held out an injection. “This liquid will halt your biological fertility exactly as it is, freezing it as it were, so that you might remain fertile for when you wish to consider children.”

That was more than she was expecting. “You mean, its not just blocking it, but actively pausing it?” She had to admit that was more than tempting, she’d been concerned not only about how she might get the IUD removed in a few years time when its lifespan expired but also about her fertility, if they ever were to get out of here, the radiation damage alone would be cause for concern, but her biological clock was well into ticking at 36. And if she was honest she hadn’t completely given up on the idea of kids. Just not out here. There was also the risk of injury out here dislodging it to consider. She sighed. “Okay… I please, yes that would be helpful. How long does it last?”

“A couple of years for one dose. You can get boosters, even out there in the Wasteland the Doctors should still have F-19. I imagine there’s more call for it than ever.” The Doctor explained and Sam nodded. Which was how Jack of course happened to come by and find her with another man between her legs.

“Carter!” he barked and she heard his pistol.

“It’s fine Jack.” She turned to see him as he rounded on them behind the curtain and took in the sight of the Doctor, doing his… thing.

“What is he…?” he asked and then as the Doc pulled it out he paled and spun. Hand clapped over his eyes. “Right… sorry. I’ll be outside.”

She emerged about 10 minutes later, one frozen fertility serum injected and her dignity a little bit bruised as she came to stand next to him.  
“Odd time for a check-up?” he grumbled, clearly wanting an explanation. She wondered if he was concerned perhaps she was ‘taking’ care of an issue that he hadn’t actually dared broach with her since they’d started having sex out here. 

“My IUD would have failed in about a year, he had the skill and a pretty nifty alternative so I figured why not, this place is more sterile than anywhere else we’re likely to find.” Sam explained and there was a moment of relief that seemed to pass over his face.

“Right…” he paused, looking around furtively before he settled on staring at her. “That’s good, that it’s taken care of, I guess.” He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than there talking about this and she took pity on him and patted him on his arm. 

Gwen approached them again smiling but it wasn’t quite reaching her eyes. “I have to ask, about those power cores. You did promise to help us ‘recharge’ them.” She looked more than a little sceptical now. “How is it you think you can help us, if what you’ve said is true then did they even have cores back then?”

Jack shot her a look, and she wished she’d had a moment to catch him up. Giving away that part of their tale hadn’t been on the agenda anywhere. But then she realised they’d have found it from the blood test anyway. Perhaps she should have just refused, but given as they were accusing her of being a synth it had been the lesser of two evils. 

“Oh well, we’ve been out here a while and I’ve been… tinkering.” That didn’t seem to convince Gwen if anything she seemed to be more unsure now about letting her near one of them.

“Look. Sam’s a genius. That’s why, stone cold brilliant. She had these little power core things figured out in no time.” He gave Gwen a look, “Why do you think out of everyone the Government chose to put her on ice to begin with, trust me Sam was considered a goddamn National Treasure.” He gave her a look, and she glanced away feeling a touch of colour in her cheeks, remembering the awkward conversation they’d once had when he’d told her that the first time. Smooth talker.

Gwen nodded, looking slightly relieved as she accepted that with grace, Sam imagined they had enough bullshit from traders and Wastelanders spinning them tall tales to deal with. Gwen turned on Jack then. “So why were you placed in the vault then, are you a tech genius too?”

Jack grinned his dangerously charming smile, with his flat dark eyes. “No. I have other skills that some people considered valuable.” Gwen looked momentarily startled by that, before she broke his gaze as she realised what he was getting at. It seemed even buried in a vault for 200 years, she knew better than to look a trained killer in the eye. Which when all was said and done, what Jack was on paper, even if it ate at him every time. His soul was littered with the marks that he’d willingly inflicted for his country.

“I see.” Gwen gave her a searching look, perhaps wondering what it was she’d actually let into her vault and around the children. Sam offered a gentle smile hoping to reassure her. After all that was only a fragment of Jack O’Neill, granted it was becoming the dominant one in them both out here in the Wastes. But Gwen it seemed had just learnt a valuable lesson, that disarming someone didn’t automatically make them any less of a threat, or any less capable of harming you. Not that she and Jack would, but it was probably a valuable lesson. 

“Why don’t you show me to your engineering bay, or wherever it is you keep your spare parts and I’ll see what I can do for you?” Sam offered. She turned back to Jack. “Why don’t you go mingle Dear.”

He blinked. Then saluted, “Yes Ma’am.” Before he did an about-face and made himself somewhere other than there which Sam thought was wise as she followed Gwen sidestepping a surly looking woman in a labcoat who was muttering about ‘outsiders’ under her breath as she went. 

\---*---

Jack watched Sam wander off with the ‘Boss Lady’ and glanced at the lab Sam had just vacated and decided to give it a wide birth before they decided to ‘fix’ him.

“Hold on young man!” The Doc called and Jack winced, walking and pretending he hadn’t heard him, after all he wasn’t young, so he could just as soon be talking to someone else. The Doc made pace beside him and stepped in front. “Jack, isn’t it?” he questioned, clearly knowing, “Your wife said that you’d both be happy to provide blood samples, I have hers.”

Jack stopped and glowered at the man. “You know I’ve just seen you with your head practically in my wife’s lap and hands where they definitely shouldn’t be, I’m impressed your brave enough to corner me in an abandoned corridor.” The Doctor paled slightly and looked around at their secluded surroundings before he seemed to visibly straighten up.  
“Nice try. Scare tactics. I take it your familiar with routine check-ups then from your military service. Think of this as that. If you please?”

Jack grimaced and did a u-turn and started rolling up his sleeve with a muttered curse about bloody Doctor’s and needles. It seemed wherever the hell he went there was some busy body wanting to jab him for some reason or other. Under ten minutes later he was striding out of there with a promise to live clean and hurried off before he found another test to run. Sadly he wasn’t paying much attention to where his legs were taking him and he ended up somewhere quite by accident that seemed to be another lab… only this was full of plants. There was a Labcoat in here too. Jack attempted to hide behind what looked like an apple tree.  
“I see you!” Came the short sharp woman’s crisp exclamation. “Ah,” she grinned as he popped his head up trying not to look guilty, or like a labrat. “So your one of our guests. Wonderful, I was hoping one of you would stop by. My son Austin was quite impressed with you both, said you’d travelled a fair bit. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind helping me?”

Jack sighed, “With what… I’m not much of a… botanist?” he had a stab at her profession.

“Very good. I’m also the hydroponic gardener down here, no easy task let me tell you.” She held her hand out. “Dr Pinske.”

“Jack O’Neill.” He shook it, surprised at how firm her grip was and how steady her gaze, most people so far down here had barely met his eye, it was starting to make him feel a bit shifty about the place. Although he didn’t trust people that trusted immediately, it tended to make them fools.

“Try this.” She handed him a fruit.

He took it and held it in his hand, it looked like the ugly cross bread of an apple, a pineapple and a peach. Furry and spikey and roughly apple shaped. “Why?” he asked the sensible question. After all he knew better than to stick any random food into his mouth, he’d at least got one up on Alice when she went blundering into Wonderland.

“Oh, I’m experimenting, trying to create a Fruit that is not only radiation resistant but can help cure radiation sickness by absorbing the particles to be passed harmfully from the body. Particularly those that line the digestive tract after so much has been ingested.”

Jack grimaced at the thought of what was clogging up his guts since landing in this damn place. 

“And you’re not testing it on anyone else here because?” He pressed and her expression grew pinched. He read between the lines, her usual ‘victims’ had made themselves scarce.  
“Is it likely to poison me?”

“Oh no, its fairly far along it’s development. It’s perfectly safe, its just a taste test.”

Jack grimaced. “Ah… I think I’d have been safer with poison.” He sighed. He supposed he could say no. He peeled back the furry prickly skin and glanced at the mostly unappatising looking thing in the middle.  
“Bottoms up.” He muttered and took a mouthful. It exploded on his tongue and he damn near startled the poor woman with his exclamation of ‘Oh my God!” as he sprayed her with the remnants.

“Oh goodness, is it that bad?” she looked horrified. “My last testers said it was almost there?”

Jack shook his head and took another bite, and another. Closing his eyes in near bliss. “Good…. So good.” He groaned. Donuts… the damn woman had made a plant that tasted like donuts. “He opened his eyes and stalked forward and grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into the biggest hug he could. Ignoring her faint protest and squeal of surprise.  
“I could kiss you right now.” He muttered around a mouthful. “I’ll take like a kilo of these babies.”

“So it’s good then?” she asked a small smile escaping her.

Jack nodded. “Oh yeah, I’m sure you’ve no idea what a donut is, but this thing, tastes like a crispy crème one with a jammy gooey centre. Bless you.” He kissed both her cheeks and she turned faintly pink which on her pasty pallor was quite impressive, he didn’t suppose they got to see the sun light… ever down here.

“Erm… certainly, I’d love to trade them, I’m calling them ‘Fresh Mutfruit’ especially if they are as delicious as you seem to think. But I’ll need to grow more, if you could find a way to help with some fertiliser?” she asked somewhat hopefully and Jack grinned nodding vigorously. Finally something was going there way.

“Oh it is both our lucky days. I can do that, I know a lovely lady with a cow-thing. Tonnes of shit, literally. I’ll get some shipped up here just as soon as I can get Preston on it.” He promised, meaning it, he needed these babies up on his farm. Hell donuts you could grow on trees that cured you or radiation sickness… what was not to like?

“Oh, aren’t you a Dear. Thank you. I’ll be sure to reserve you some special.” She handed him another one and he grinned conspiratorially.

“Terrible name though… who wants to eat a ‘mutfruit?’” He pointed out. “Why not call them…” he had a brain wave from a little remembered misadventure in googling about a donut peach, “The Donapple?” She looked less than impressed. “The Applenut?”

She gave him a quirked eyebrow, “I see. And is that a condition of your assistance with the fertiliser?”

Jack grinned, “Let’s call it a hopeful request?” He gave her his most charming smile. She sighed and smiled back.

“We’ll see.” She conceded, and he’d take that.

“Thanks.” He disappeared off before she tried to ruin the flavour of heaven in his mouth with something less appetising and he pocketed the other one for Sam, she’d never believe him otherwise and he wanted to kiss her with the taste of donut on her lips. Just ‘because’.

It seemed like for everyone that wanted to avoid him in this vault there were a dozen more who wanted to talk to him. One guy, Horatio was really insistent, Jack didn’t like to stereotype people but the young hairdresser and former Wastelander seemed to definitely have more than a passing interest in getting him in his damn chair. Jack relented not because of the constant flattery and critique of his current ‘silvering’ do, although getting him to shut up was high on his list, it was also because he really could do with a trim and he hadn’t dared let Sam come near him with a pair of rusty scissors they’d found. 

It was more than a little strange to be sat in a barber’s chair in the middle of the damn apocalypse staring at his reflection in a pristine mirror as a guy with an easy grin and too much idle gossip to hand out gave him a number two on the back and sides and took more than a little off the top. By the time he was done he felt a little more human, as he stroked his smooth cheeks and gave a nod of approval. He also had more intel on this place than he knew what to do with.

He wasn’t entirely sure how helpful knowing that Bobby DeLuca was a jet junky, or that his sister Tina as sleeping with some guy named Holt was, but he knew it. Apparently, the power generator room might be a useful place to take a visit as it seemed to be where all the action was happening. His feet led him down there and he met the unwashed sack of crap that was Bobby DeLuca, honestly the guy was pathetic, he had literally everything in here, every opportunity not afforded the poor assholes up in the Wastes and all he knew to do with it was to shoot up and if that failed, get blind drunk. His sister seemed to have a modicum of decency, he got the feeling she was harbouring some guilt for his condition, but he personally thought that was misplaced and that Bobby should take responsibility for being his own fuckup.  
Although he kind of admired the guys ingenuity in his own laziness to programme his ‘Mr Rusty’ robot to do all his chores. If he’d applied even half that moxie to his work the generators probably wouldn’t be in need of such repair.

He couldn’t wait to get away to him, both of them put his teeth on edge, too damn twitchy and wrapped up in their own shit, plus he didn’t like being near a nuclear reactor, no matter how ‘safe’ Sam claimed they were when she’d seen the one still running in Vault 111. He was pleasantly surprised when he ran back into Austin, who’d apparently been sent to retrieve him for lunch. He’d sent him off to get Preston and Dogmeat given as the threat inside was clearly non-existent and they needed a good meal.

Lunch was an American ‘diner’ or at least as close an approximation of one as he’d thought he’d see again. Sam was sat at a table with Gwen and a sunken looking woman he thought from the description Horatio had given him was Alexis, the poor wife of the cheating rat Holt. They all seemed to be getting on like a house on fire and he smiled touching Sam’s back briefly as he went and meeting her eyes, she nodded once to indicate everything was fine and he headed up to the nice homely looking white-haired woman who had a big smile for him.

Turns out Maria and her ‘Good ol’boy’ husband Mark Summerset had been running the diner for going on forty years or so together, he got the impression they’d been married as soon as they’d been old enough and had never looked at another person except for each other. Just like everyone down here it seemed that they were in sore need of a fresh perspective and in Maria’s case some fresh ingredients. He promised her that he’d already spoken to Gwen about getting them onto the supply chain from the farming settlements for some reliable real meat. She promised to have a steak waiting with his name on it if he could teach her the recipe to good ol’BBQ sauce, just like Grandpa used to make with more than a splash of bourbon in it. Easy win really and definitely the best deal he’d made out here so far steak and ‘donapples’. Heaven.

With the plated-up food consisting of some fresh veg, he assumed came from the hydroponic garden and something vaguely rice like and tomato-ish things, he slid into the seat next to Sam who’d finished all hers he was pleased to see. He slid Dr Penske’s ‘Donut Fruit’ onto her plate.

“Desert.” He told her with a grin and she frowned, he wasn’t normally much of a fruit guy. He winked at her. “Trust me.” He watched her like a hawk from the way her hand hovered over it to the lift of it to her lips as she parted them and took a bite. The look of ecstasy on her face was worth it, and he really wanted to be alone with her in that moment.

“Donapples.” He told her smugly with a nod. “Trademark pending.”

Sam laughed gently and took another bite. “God that’s good. But I dunno, names kind of cheesy, how about Cruller Fruits?” Jack wasn’t convinced it was as catchy as Donapples but frankly she could call them whatever the hell she wanted if she looked like that eating them.

“So, Ladies.” He nodded at her companions in turn, giving it a bit of a twinkle for poor Alexis. “Having fun?”

“You were right, your wife is a complete genius.” Gwen grinned, and Sam gave a small quirk of her lips at the praise but didn’t otherwise respond. But he quite enjoyed that she still took pride in being called that. She’d blown up a sun for crying out loud, genius didn’t cover it.

“Told ya she’d fix your little power problem.” He smirked. She’d taken particular offence to Sturgess’ challenge when her power core had run dry on her Power Armour that no one had found a way to re-use the buggers. He reached out and placed his hand over hers on the table, also enjoying the idea that he could do that without loathing himself now. He brushed the skin on the back of her hand with his thumb, giving it a gentle squeeze. Only Sam could ‘fix’ future technology in ways these lot hadn’t even dreamed of.  
“Quite a setup of you’ve got here.” He admitted pleasantly. “I’ve had quite a tour.” He paused taking them in, “Seems like we may have something to offer you folks. You’re in need of supplies, regular and good quality. Like I said, we have that network with the Minutemen.” Right then Preston walked in with Dogmeat who bounded up to him and he gave him a bit of a fuss, strolling his head as he sat down next to him thumping his tale and Jack grinned looked around for the boy… Austin, who’d clearly gone to get their friends as requested, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

It was as they were finishing up and chatting about the Vaults needs with Preston taking point on that, when the call went out. More like a cry as a group of Vault Security and a terrified looking Dr Penske who was carrying a bloodied Austin ran past. Jack had a moment to hesitate before he was up and after them. Gwen and Sam close by with Dogmeat at his heels. They headed straight for the infirmary. There was frantic movement and he and Sam hung back whilst the Doctors talked and as it turned out Austin’s mother Dr Penske panicked. 

“Mole-rats, some sort of… I don’t know he said they were rabid, but then he just passed out.” She was shaking as she held him to her and Gwen gently moved her back so Dr Forsythe could help her son. Jack felt his chest ache a little at the thought of that poor boy, looking so pale and lifeless. He crossed to him, waiting for the Doc’s report on his status.

The man looked up, harried and clearly distressed; Jack got the impression he wasn’t used to a lot of medical emergencies down here. He didn’t seem to know quite what to do.  
“It some sort of disease, fast, vicious.” He pulled back the wound on the boys leg and Jack could see it spreading like veins up his leg from the blooded mess. “I can clean up this wound, its superficial, but whatever’s causing the fever, is causing systemic organ failure, I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Jack looked at the others, they all seemed frozen. “How the hell did a molerat get in here, where was he when he got bit?”

“You don’t get it. Whatever this is, it’s not normal, I’ve never seen a molerat inflict this kind of damage – and yes occasionally we get them infesting the upper levels when they burrow down, but not like this.” The Doctor declared. “I don’t know how to treat him, because I don’t know what this is. Not without seeing one of the creatures for myself!”

“Please Gwenie, my son, you have to help?”

“Where was he found?” Sam cut in and Jack was right behind her. 

“Outside the Generator room, Bobby found him.” Dr Penske informed them, her face drawn, Jack knew that look, he’d had it himself as he’d cradled his dying son in his arms, praying for a miracle. He reached out and touched her shoulder.

“Sam and I got this. We’ll go down and find one of these damn molerats. We’ll get you your damn samples so you can figure this out and save the kid.” He tapped Sam on the arm and started moving. “I need the weapons we came in with.” He instructed Gwen and she nodded running off to see to it or get one of the guards too.  
Jack turned to Preston. “Go with the guards, scout the area see if you can see anymore of the blighters on the other levels.” He tried to get Dogmeat to go with him, but it seems he was loyal to a fault he sensed the tension in the air, he was stuck to Jack’s legs like glue. He wasn’t complaining, he’d take another jaw full of teeth and a bad attitude on his side any day.

The security team met them at the generator room and handed the weapons, then they stepped back, although to protect what exactly Jack wasn’t clear. He rolled his eyes and headed in, coming across the waste of space that was Bobby DeLuca almost immediately. He was hiding sobbing behind one of the pillars an empty syringe at his feet. Jack dragged him out and Dogmeat got in his face all teeth and pricked up fur growling dangerously. Jack placed a hand on his neck. Trusting the dog to know this was a show of force, and not a use of it right now. 

“What the hell happened to Austin, I need to know now Bobby. He was last seen down here?”

Bobby shook his head, shaking and sniffing, but he was sober, or at least as sober as Jack figured he got. Jack grabbed him by his shirt and all but shook him. “Damn it man, the kids dying. Tell me where the hell that molerat got in!”

Bobby was wide eyed and furtive but he kept looking over to one side. Jack gestured to Sam and she darted to go check it out.

“Jack. There’s a hidden panel back here.” He appeared, dragging Bobby with him and rapidly running out of patience for his snivelling. What they found was Bobby’s stash, inside some sort of containment suite. Sam pulled it open and a room opened up, there was a control panel there that Sam had already spotted and was sliding in front of. Jack’s eyes lingered on the rows of chems that were stashed just inside the entryway inside a cubbyhole. The little creep had found some sort of hidden passageway, or unfinished part of the vault and clearly hadn’t mentioned it to anyone so he could keep his damn junk in there.

“What is this place?” Jack snarled at him.

“I just… I use it to get high. It’s just some damn storeroom. It’s nothing. But, I saw one of the damn moley’s in there. Austin, that damn kid was snooping around he must have seen me go in here. I dragged him out and shut the door on the thing but that’s all I could do!”

Sam was tapping away at the computer and he shoved the useless Bobby back out the door, “Get out of here. And clean yourself up for God sakes!” he snapped at him. Turning back to Sam, “What have you got?” he asked coming to stand over her and dropping his hands onto her shoulders. She reached up and touched one.

“This place… it was just like Vault 111, just like all the vaults I think. Morally bankrupt. This vaults purpose was to great a more resistant human being, to make them immune to all disease. They planned to do this by testing biological weapons on isolated populations within the vault. The whole damn place was rigged with nozzles to release it through the ventilation. Their lab rats, like everything Vault-tec I suspect.”

“Where the hell do the molerats come into it?”

“Animal test subjects.” Sam replied, pointing to the screen and the text. “There was a stepwise plan, cultivate in the lab, expose to the animals, and then test on the human population.”

“Survival of the fittest.” Jack reasoned. “So why didn’t anyone mention that they are routinely exposed to various plagues that wipe them out?” 

Sam shook her head. “Because it didn’t happen.” She pointed at the screen to what he could clearly see were ‘logs’. “The Overseer, 200 years ago she wasn’t fully on team Vault-tec. When she found out what she was supposed to do, what their mission was down here, this ‘Secret Vault’ down here to experiment on them, she stopped it. She was supposed to contact the civilians and the scientists, so she just didn’t call them. All but three who turned up on their own. She sealed them off down here in this separate part of the vault. Locked them away where they couldn’t complete their objectives.”

Jack stared at the screen, reading the words for himself. “She sealed them off down here? Indefinitely?” he questioned, it seemed down right cold to him, but he supposed effective. Personally he’d have found it more humane to kill them than that miserable alternative.

Sam looked like she was thinking along similar lines as they shared a grim look. “It looks that way. After she’d sabotaged all the disease delivery systems throughout the vault. Then yeah, she left them to live or die it didn’t seem to matter.” Sam pointed to the screen and a bunch of messages. “They had a way of messaging her, but after the initial lock down she didn’t respond again, but it seems like they carried on their work with what was available to them. Even left updates, seems like they used the mole-rats as their test subjects all those years. The last message came in from a ‘Collins’ about 30 years after he was trapped down there, he was dying, wanted her to know that she’d got her wish and saved the vault, but that he thought she should have trusted them to do the morally right thing all along. Reminded her about the Vault ethos, that it was about the many not the few.”

Jack shuddered. “Yeah you know what, the more I learn about these Vaults the less I like them.” He squeezed her shoulder. “So we got what, mutant molerats running around down here?”

Sam slid out of the seat and stood. “They’re already mutated Jack. These things are just… wrong. But whatever they are carrying it seems like they may have developed a cure for it in their time down here. We just need to go further in, find the laboratories.”

“And not get bit.” Jack muttered. Dogmeat gave a low snuffle of a bark in agreement. “Agreed only biting that’s getting done is by this guy. Am I clear?” he told her and she nodded picking up her rifle. He held her gaze for a moment and she smiled, reaching up to pat his chest, he couldn’t help it, he worried now. He’d always worried but he hadn’t been able to show her before, this was new ground for both of them.


	12. Emergent Behaviours

They made their slow way into the ‘secret vault’ through the access panel the controls opened up. The air was a little ripe but seemed otherwise fine, apparently it was on a separate ventilation system out of necessity for when they ‘gassed’ the residents levels. They crossed down corridors with huge one-way glass observation windows into the Vault they’d just left along with control panels to make observations and control the local rooms.

“Well this isn’t freaky at all.” Jack muttered as he tried not to hear the domestic that was clearly happening in the room on the right as he walked past. Kind of comforting in a way though to think that couples still rowed about the ‘normal’ stuff.

“I guess they needed some way to observe their subjects in real time as well as isolating the exposure, they didn’t want to wipe the entire population out in one go.” Sam sneered, “There’d be no one left to test the next batch on.” She sounded about as pleased with Vault-tec as he was right now.   
“We have to just hope that the labs are in better condition than the rest of this vault though, or we might not find anything of use.” Sam noted, looking at the general rubble and disrepair all around them. Apparently, the scientists hadn’t been good at the general upkeep, or simply didn’t have the resources or expertise to make the basic repairs. Or didn’t care too Jack considered, they had been locked down here indefinitely after all, thing like that might dent your work ethic. 

Dogmeat started to growl low and threatening and Jack raised the gun, the Dog didn’t growl for nothing. As if on cue a bunch of molerats came bursting out of the rubble and these fuckers were big… and glowing. He darted back letting loose a spray of bullets. Short sharp bursts he focused as he swung around and caught the ones behind them. Dogmeat was darting about herding them more than attacking, which was working well enough as he pinned one down and Jack whipped out his pistol and put a single shot through its brain pan. Sam was fairing equally well as they stood almost back to back and held off the advancing swarm. It didn’t take long, but it was intense and they were resilient. He thought Austin had done well to escape with all his limbs still attached if he was honest seeing these things. Their teeth were as long as his damn forearm on some of them.

“I hate these things.” Sam muttered as she kicked one to check it was dead. It wasn’t and it rounded jaws bared before she slammed her foot on its throat and put three bullets in its head, obliterating it in a slick move that once upon a time would have seemed impressive, but was sadly fairly routine now. He still thought it was sort of hot though, despite the situation, which was probably because they were both getting a bit warped out here. He was fairly sure that if they ever got back to Earth they wouldn’t be passing any psyche evals straight away.

“You think there are more of them?” He asked not liking the oddly oppressive silence since everything was suddenly dead.

“Probably.” Sam conceded. “This might have been just one pack. If they’ve been breeding down here for the last few decades, I dread to think how many there are.” She looked around nervously and then glanced at her PipBoy, “I’m reading several clusters of heat signatures ahead and below.” She indicated looking resigned to the idea of having to repeat this little horror show over and over.

Jack checked his watch. It had been an hour already since they’d left Austin. The Doc hadn’t set a time frame but he got the impression that speed was of the essence. “We need to find a cure for the kid, we can do a full sweep and burn these little buggers out later if we have to.” 

Sam nodded happy to follow his lead. “The Overseer’s terminal showed a number of labs in this direction.” She said, pointing at her PipBoy, where she’d downloaded the floorplan by the looks of it. Honestly, he suspected that one of these days he was going to actually sit down and have to learn how she did half the crap she did, just in case he was stuck on his own. 

They had to clear out several packs of the blighters before they reached the labs, there was a glass observation window and Jack whipped his rifle up in surprise as a robot floating inside appeared in the window, staring at them. This one looked a lot like Codsworth, only white all over, creepy robot eyestalks and all following them unnervingly.

“Ello.” The robot intoned and Jack paused, surprised at the seemingly strong French very sultry female accent coming out of the thing. Perhaps he’d imagined it?

“Hi?” He queried, not lowering the gun from the glass, it seemed to have sealed itself inside a lab, Sam was eying the door panel and made a few unsuccessful attempts at opening it before coming to stand beside him.

“You are from Vault-tec perhaps?” The robot questioned again and he definitely wasn’t imagining the French accent that seemed to give her a whole other character. 

“Sure.” Jack replied, “We’re based over in Vault 111. Right over the way there.” He pointed in the general direction of North West. “I’m Jack O’Neill, this here’s Sam Carter, you want to let us in, we’ve got a sick kid in need of something to fix up a nasty molerat bite.”

“I am Curie, but I am afraid I cannot do that.” The robot Curie moved closer to the glass. “Alas I have the cure, but it is the last vial. But if the molerats have breached the surface they will wipe out all life, the plague they carry is deadly. They must be stopped.”

Jack sighed. “Well, we’ve wiped out a tonne of them already. So how about you let us in, we get that cure off you, take it up to fix up the kid, then come back down here and finish exterminating the buggers, that suit?” He snapped off, time was a wasting, time Austin didn’t’ have.

“Non,” The robot snapped. “That simply will not do. We must prevent the spread, the surface population cannot handle a pathogen like this, it will destroy civilisation as we know it. It is my prime directive whilst I am inside this facility, to prevent the spread at all costs.” Curie it seemed wasn’t budging.

Jack frowned but Sam as always was ten steps ahead. “You’re the Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer aren’t you ‘Curie’, the Nannybot that the scientist Collins reprogrammed to help as his lab assistant?” She asked stepping closer to the glass so that the robot could get a good look at her. Jack blinked… she was a what now? Seriously how did she know this stuff, he got the impression she only ever gave him the clip notes version of anything, which was starting to feel like a tactical weakness on his part.

“I am.” The robot replied, clearly pleased to be known. “I have continued the work Dr Collins left me, and I have completed my cure for all known pathogens and diseases.” Curie replied sounding almost proud, but then Jack had long since gotten used to the idea of these chrome-dome’s emoting.

“Look, you’ve been down here a long time, 200 years, you do realise that civilisation is already destroyed?” Sam pointed out. The robot’s eyes stalk moved and zeroed in on her.

“How can that be?” Curie uttered sounding genuinely surprised but hesitant as he imagined anyone would be.

“You have to know that the vault was activated due to a nuclear detonation on the surface. It’s gone, there’s literally nothing left up there.”

“Were you not up there?” The robot pointed out, “And zis boy?” she replied, “Life has sustained, and life will be destroyed if it is released. Non. I must insist you sterilise the infected test molerat population before I can risk the last of the cure.”

Sam gave Jack a look. He glanced at his watch. He wasn’t sure how long this would take but the Doc had said to hurry. He looked back at the robot. “Just so we’re clear, if that kid dies, I will get in there and turn you into scrap metal Curie. Nes pa?” He ended in his limited French, Dogmeat backed up that assessment with a vicious growl that perfectly accented Jack’s mood.

This Curie robot seemed to rear backwards at the threat, like it genuinely hadn’t anticipated that response. “I see. Then I ‘av no choice but to accept your bargain.” The robot replied and Jack nodded with a grimace, ‘note to self, threatening robots doesn’t work’ he filed that away.

“Fine. Carter, we gotta take care of this anyway, let’s be fast yeah.” He gave her a significant look, she nodded and as a pair they fanned back out into the corridors.

“I’m not sure if it’s the French or the robot part that makes me distrust that thing more.” He growled as they made their way deeper into the dilapidated laboratory of this side of the vault and downed another group.

“Look at it from her perspective.” Sam reasoned. “Collins and the other scientists created a super plague and stuffed it in those molerats. She’s doing the right thing by insisting it gets destroyed before she risks the last of the cure. It’s exactly the same quarantine procedure we’ve had to implement at… the SGC.” She trailed off and Jack glanced at her, wondering if she’d been about to call the SGC home… and had not been able to bring herself to do it, or if it was just the thought of the place, the memories that had caused that sad thoughtful look to cross her face.

It seemed heartless but he couldn’t let her be introspective right now, he needed her head here. “Why the hell doesn’t she just make more?!” Jack groused, “I mean who the hell only creates one vial of a super cure?” Questions, even dumb ones were always his go too for getting undivided Carter attention, she never had been able to resist answering him.

Sam frowned, the sadness being replaced with something more calculating she bit her lip, “I imagine there may have been more, she probably used up the materials in the development of the plague and the cure. There had to have been limited resources down here, I imagine after 200 years whatever they were using would have run out – or it had an expiration date.” She reasoned. It sounded logical to him.

Turns out distracting her with a problem was almost as dangerous as letting her be distracted with thoughts of home, as a molerat lunged at her leg. They were both too slow in reacting, the deliberate distraction he’d created biting him in the ass and Jack cursed himself as he saw it fly at her. He raised his rifle, a full clip in place and ready but he knew it was going to be too slow as his stomach clenched with dread and adrenalin pumped in the seconds it took for him to orientate. Dogmeat was faster, putting himself between the molerat and Sam’s leg. The howl the poor dog let out as the thing sunk its teeth deep into it’s flesh sounded far too human and agonised. Jack changed his aim, going for central mass so not to hit Dogmeat, as the wounded dog turned snapping his huge jaws and taking the molerats neck nearly clean off. But the damage was done. His pulse pounded and his hands shook with adrenalin as Sam skidded to a halt next to the dog.

In seconds her hand was clasped over the wound on his neck trying to stem the flow of blood. “Shit.” She hissed as the dog whimpered and snapped at her half-heartedly. She shushed it, brushing its head and insisting it lay still as she picked it up trying to keep pressure on the wound, but the sheer amount of fur clearly hindering her. 

“Get back to the labs I saw a surgical table in there and supplies, we can stitch him up.” Jack ordered. 

“What about the disease?” She asked looking pale as she cradled the bleeding dog in her arms and he knew her guilt, that this poor animal had maybe just sacrificed itself for her, was weighing heavier than the actual animal in her arms.

“Let’s hope dgs are immune.” He snapped. “How many that thing say are left down here.” He asked and she unwrapped the PipBoy from her arm and tossed it to him. 

“One more cluster, that way, roughly a dozen of the things.”

Jack nodded snapping it onto his wrist and noting the heat signatures around them – damn that was handy. “I say we do this the old-fashioned way,” he unclipped his grenades. “Get him out of here I’ll sort this.”

“Jack. Make sure you avoid…” She started to say and he cut her off, knowing where her head was at.

“Structural supports… yeah, I got it big concrete block underground.” He replied, nodding, it sadly wasn’t his first rodeo using explosives in a bunker either.

\---*---

Sam ran with Dogmeat in her arms, hearing his pants and mewls as he struggled to breathe around the blood she knew was pooling, he was starting to grow stiller and heavy in her arms as she skidded into the labs. Curie was stood behind her glass as Sam dropped Dogmeat onto the gurney.

“What is it, what has happened?” The white floating robot pressed from her secured location.

Sam ignored her. Shoving aside the useless crap and grabbing the lab materials that seemed to have been left, she found alcohol, gauze, gaffa tape. She turned back to his wound, dousing it and relieved that the poor thing seemed to be unconscious at least.

“Allow me?” Sam nearly jumped out of her skin when she realised the white robot was floating directly beside her. She had her appendages out, one of which was clearly a scalpel. Sam glanced back at the sealed lab closed behind her and then at Curie again.

“The cure is safely inside, but I cannot let zis poor creature die. Not when I ‘av the means to help.” She replied and gently but firmly moved Sam aside as she began stitching the dog up, cleaning the wound and doing a better job than Sam ever would have and Sam was more than a little grateful, guilt ate at her, Dogmeat had saved her life, again possibly for the last time. But apparently, this robot had been programmed to care, which seemed almost cruel given the function of this vault, either way she was grateful for it.

“What about the disease, the plague?” Sam questioned watching her work with a huge amount of skill and speed. Faintly awed by how something so clunky in design, little more than pistons and gears, could be so precise with its limited coding function. But clearly based on the personality that Curie seemed to be sporting and what she’d pulled from Collin’s records about how these machines were created, she was starting to suspect that ‘memory’ stamping played a bigger part than any code could hope to in the robots actual functioning.

“The disease the molerats carried is designed to affect human populations only. This is a Dog non?” Curie turned to look at her, as if wanting reassurance she had the right animal, because clearly she’d never seen one before. Sam nodded and Curie returned to her work. “He will live, but he will not be as he was, there will be side effects. Lethargy perhaps, but the virus was not meant for his species, it will not survive in this host, he will not be contagious.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief, “Good, he’s a good boy, he’s saved my life, twice now. I think he’s earned his retirement.” Sam patted his blooded fur gently; the big German Shephard had grown on her in ways she’d never thought possible. “A big farmhouse, lots of food and cuddles, big bed out in the sun and roaches for him to chase.” She stroked his nose and dropped her head to him for a moment whilst Curie worked. He gave her a nuzzle, but he was almost too tired to move she realised and his breathing was laboured.

“You sure he’ll be okay?” She asked again one last time and Curie gave her an affirmative sound. “I need to go help Jack, I’ll be back.” She grabbed her rifle, glanced one last time at Dogmeat being stitched up by the robotic Curie and broke into a run, she wasn’t about to lose anyone else on this little field trip to the Vault, which had been her idea to begin with. Certainly not Jack, she didn’t want to let her mind consider what would happen if it came down to a choice between Jack and Austin and the last vial of the damn cure. And she really didn’t want to put him in that position either. 

An explosion rocked her and she hurried, dust and debris billowing around a corner as she found him at the far end of the ruined vault, knee deep in the bastards as he quietly put bullets in anything still twitching. She came to a panting halt and it was a sign of how intense it was because he levelled a gun on her and she put her hands up, letting him calm for a moment, the adrenalin having turned his eyes into black coals that burned with awareness and intensity. He took a beat and lowered his rifle, keeping it to the ground but not sliding the safety on just yet. But he looked whole and intact as she scanned him desperately for signs of bites or scratches, hating that she had left him alone down here.

“Your okay?” She gasped, eyeing once more just how many he’d taken out and scarcely believing he was. He nodded grimly, looking her over and deciding that he clearly couldn’t tell if she was from all the blood that she realise coated her and was even now dripping from her fingertips. Dogmeat’s blood.

He hurried over, stepping on the bodies with a particular relish she thought as he caved in a skull with his boot and raised a hand to her, his eyes checking once more that the blood wasn’t hers.

“I think that’s all of them.” He nodded, lifting his arm, and she helped, toggling through the setting and finding no other heat signatures, except for theirs and the one back in the lab which meant Dogmeat was still alive at least.

“How’s Dogmeat?” he asked the concern pinching his features and his voice. His hand went to her arm, curling around her bicep as if he needed the connection, the surety for a moment.

“He’ll live I think, thank God. Seems you were right, that virus isn’t meant for dogs, but he won’t be as spry as before. Curie’s patching him up.” She confirmed and he nodded, relief and regret warring across his features and she reached out and pressed a kiss to his cheek, letting their foreheads rest together for a moment of calm amidst the horror around them. “He saved my life.” She admitted darkly. “Again.”

“Dog needs a damn medal,” Jack agreed, “You realise that’s like three we owe him, directly.” Jack pointed out then as if realising how scary a damn thought that was, he was cupping her cheeks and kissing her hard and fast, then just as suddenly he pulled back and stifled a sound that she realised sounded unnervingly like a stifled croak of emotion as he burying his nose in her temple.   
“This Wasteland is going to kill us, you realise.” He rasped quietly and she sighed, dropping her head to his chest.  
“Then let’s keep making it a challenge at least.” Sam replied grimly, suspecting he was probably right. One day their luck had to run out.

Curie it seemed was more than happy to part with the cure once they had confirmed that they had destroyed the infected molerats, which they were able to confirm with the scans from her Pip-Boy. Jack was paying them little apparent attention, although she suspected he’d heard every word as he stood hunched over the lab bench, his hand out soothing through Dogmeat’s fur, who was still asleep, apparently Curie had given him something to knock him out, along with an anti-scratch collar. Like the one’s dogs used to get from the vets. Apparently working with animals down here had its unexpected benefits now.

Curie had one request though, which seemed to peeve Jack given as he clearly thought that holding out on the kids cure was a dick move and meant any such ‘requests’ from her ought to be ignored on principle.   
“I would like your permission to leave the Vault.” She asked Sam firmly.

Sam frowned. “Why do you need our permission?”

“As vault-tec employees I require your permission if I wish to leave this place, I cannot do so alone. I wish to explore this new world out there, to help where I can and put all that I know to good use.” Curie implored, but she was barking up the wrong tree.

“I got bad news for you, we don’t work for Vault-tec.” Jack spoke up, shrugging.

Curie’s eye pieces roamed over them. “I am sorry. My auditory sensors may be malfunctioning, but I believe I heard you grant me permission to leave this vault after all these years, alone.”

Sam smirked and Jack snorted. “Yeah, pretty sure that’s what I said.” Sam muttered, you had to admire a robot with moxie. Although it’s or rather her, somewhat liberal ability to play fast and loose with programming rules gave Sam pause.

“Knock yourself out, Wastelands real fun place for a stroll.” Jack offered a little unfairly Sam thought, the robot after all had been following a protocol that she herself tended to agree with, and she had saved Dogmeat’s life and she had the damn cure.

“Jack.” Sam admonished and she gave him a pointed, ‘play nicely’ look her eyes lingering on Dogmeat to get her point across and he rolled his eyes with a muttered ‘fine.’

“Do I need to remind you that a kids dying upstairs whilst we waste time discussing whose going where?” he growled, and Sam sighed he was right of course, but that didn’t always excuse his bloody-mindedness rudeness and not with a robot that had real value not just to them but potentially the vault. But Curie seemed to be ignoring him, focused entirely on her, as if understanding that Jack was not her best bet, and probably recalling his promise to dismember her if Austin died.

“Look, you should head North West to a town called Sanctuary,” Sam offered ignoring Jack’s clearly harried, disapproving look. “they’ve got a Mr Handy there who would love to meet you and a nice group of people bunch of people in need of a good doctor.” She added “If you wanted to get out of the Vault that is.” Although she suspected the people upstairs would have preferred she stayed on here.

“I would prefer to accompany you for a little while, if you would allow it?” Curie replied firmly, “I feel like you may be in need of my services more than a group of settlers.” Her French accent was certainly soothing, Sam smiled gently, but she knew a woman using her wiles when she heard it and she realised she might have to watch the robot for the same damn thing, however ridiculous that sounded. But then maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous, she’d been duped by her own robotic duplicate in the same way, playing on her sympathies and expectations of what she ‘thought’ she knew. Just because Curie looked like a flying toaster with a medical licence didn’t mean she wasn’t sophisticated enough to pull one over them.

“If your both done. Let’s get this damn cure to Austin first and put your money where your mouth is so to speak!” Jack snapped and picked up their dog gently, cradling him in his arms like a child and Sam tried not to let the sight affect her too much, it was after all just a dog, but the impression stuck and she followed them glad to see the back of this side of the vault.

\---*---

The Doctor’s at Austin’s bedside were more than a little hesitant to believe what they were saying and to let a random former Nanny-bot from a supposedly ‘secret vault’ inject an unidentified ‘cure’ into Austin which had been grown out of the testing on molerats.

“Look what choice do you have?” Jack snapped clearly aware time was wasting. “Like we said, this vault was one big sham, she’s from the secret labs that were designed to use you lot as Guinea pigs. She has a cure for Austin, step aside and let her give him the damn thing!” Jack gesticulated, he’d give the kid the damn cure himself if they didn’t. He pointed sharply at the lab coated Doc.  
“I didn’t just put our asses and get my damn dog almost killed for you to stand there and let him die.” Jack snarled, the threat in his voice quite real as he placed Dogmeat’s unconscious bloodied body, down on the other gurney pointedly.

Dr Forsythe hesitated. His mother Dr Penske did not, she whipped the vial out of his hand and loaded up a syringe. She glanced at Curie. “All of it?” She asked no nonsense.

“Oui. A full dose for a child. An adult perhaps half would do.” Dr Penske’s lip trembled and Curie seemed confused as to the hesitation, perhaps not as good at reading human emotions as Sam had thought, because she clearly didn’t understand a mother’s fear.   
“It will work, I have spent over 100 years perfecting it.” Curie insisted a hint of impatience and frustration in her tone that her work was being questioned. Pride then, another emotion to add to the list. And Sam suspected curiosity, the robot wanted to know it worked she was almost certain she was picking that up from her.

But the assurance was good enough for his mother apparently as she stuck Austin with the hard won cure. Sam winced. Experimental cures were never fun and she’d had her fair share.   
There was nothing to do after that, but sit and wait. 

Sam hadn’t left the room, not in the last two hours, observing everything with Curie beside her, asking questions as the Doctor and his mother confirmed that Austin’s vitals were stabilising and with relief they announced that his fever had finally broken. Dr Penske looked up from his bedside, stroking his sweat soaked brow, she gave Sam a nod then leant forward and hugged Austin to her, sobbing gently as it became apparent that he was going to live. The sight was too personal and the pain to raw as Sam looked away, focusing instead on her own family crisis it seemed.

Dogmeat was in a different room off to the side, Preston and Jack were sat with him when she came in and she was relieved to see that the dog was awake and getting a lot of attention. Apparently as the only patient able to receive visitors he was getting the ‘hero’s’ treatment. The Sommersets had been by with some of the last of the vaults fresh meat for him as a thank you gesture for his role in saving Austin and putting his life on the line. Perhaps one good thing had come from this and the Vault dwellers might start trusting outsiders a little more. Maybe even consider becoming a part of society again, such as it was. But it was another link in the Minutemen’s chain. Preston and Jack seemed pleased at least with that, after all a vault and its group were a useful addition to their network and despite what the Vault had been intended for, these were good people.

Gwen approached her and they exchanged small talk. She seemed to have been in the dark even as the Overseer, but not entirely surprised about the ‘secret Vault’ and it’s willingness to experiment on its own people. Apparently, she’d been warned by her predecessor that it was important that they remained moral, that the vaults survival and that of its residents was paramount. But with Austin’s slow but steady recovery, and the connections they had to offer it seemed like Gwen was willing to extend an invitation to them to stay. 

At the very least they insisted they take them up on the offer of a room of their own right here in the vault, indefinitely. Theirs if and when they wanted it. Somewhere clean and dry, with working plumbing and clean water, safe from radiation and anything that might attack them; as nothing was getting through that big ass vault door unless it was invited in. Not now they’d taken care of the molerats. Sam considered it, after all it was a truly safe haven, a place where they weren’t responsible for everything, and everyone, just somewhere to lay their heads and eat a meal with people they could trust not to stab them in the back. It would be good to have somewhere like this to come visit every now and again she realised.

Sam shook the Overseer’s hand and accepted it in a heartbeat. Friends were hard to come by out here, even fewer of them were worth it, she got the feeling that they’d just found one of the few in Gwen.

They agreed to stick around for a few more days, Preston was clearly far less comfortable with the idea of staying in the Vault than they were, apparently living underground wasn’t for him and he kept to himself, mostly hanging around the canteen and talking to folks there, spreading the word about the Minutemen and something of General Jack’s legend as she caught the tail-end of it, receiving a few pats on the back from the suddenly far more welcoming population. It helped that Austin was doing so well, his recovery quicker than anyone expected, within just a few hours he seemed to be regaining his colour and his vitals were stabilising. Curie whilst clearly eager to leave was also more than happy to watch the culmination of 200 years of work in action with her cure. She’d also given Dr Forsythe and Dr Penske all her research uploading it into their databanks so that they could potentially recreate it if needed once they had the supplies. Although without knocking off a high-tec research facility Sam thought some of Curie’s shopping list might be stretching their means, but you never knew. Perhaps if they really could get the Minutemen going properly they could make re-taking one of the big pharma labs and getting it up into production again a priority. A cure for ‘every’ known disease would certainly be handy out here. Although what was known 200 years ago and now probably had resulted in a bit of a gap.

Jack spent most of the time in sickbay entertaining Austin and keeping Dogmeat company. They’d moved them both into the same room now that Austin was awake and out of the woods and the dog seemed to be cheering him up. The boy had clearly been feeling down on waking and worried about how his actions were going to look in such a small population. But Sam didn’t think he had much to worry about. Bobby DeLuca on the other hand had been tossed into one of the lab rooms and Curie and Dr Forsythe had stuck him with something called ‘addictol’ which was like an all-body flush, to cleanse his system. Between the two of them and a rather pissed off Tina and Holt it looked like he might get clean or find himself out on his ass for endangering them all and not letting them know about the backdoor he’d found in their highly secure vault.

Sam entered the infirmary and Curie glided over to her. “Samantha, it is good to see you.” She purred in her French accent and Sam beamed at her.

“Likewise.” They exchanged pleasantries, which was odd she realised only after given as one of them was a giant white flying robot-ball, and Sam asked after both patient’s who Curie was able and happy clearly to report were doing well, but either the robot didn’t want to, or couldn’t hide her clear anxiety.

“We will be going soon oui?” she pressed, getting in Sam’s personal space, her insistence alarming, but Sam understood the sentiment, after all if she’d been locked in the same damn rooms for 200 years, she’d imagine she’d want ‘out’ in a big way too. Given the extra time they’d had to discuss it, Sam now had a much better understanding of exactly ‘what’ Curie was, apparently she wasn’t wrong this world really did seem to attempt to stamp human personality profile’s into the robots, in the form of memories – compiled from journals and recollections, even brain scans. She supposed if your computer coding language was that rudimentary or they were that resistant to AI’s which seemed the case, then it was the next available option, even if it did freak her out a little. The idea that this robot’s ‘brain’ so to speak, was made up of so many of the worlds greatest ‘big’ thinkers, including her namesake Madame Curie; well it was as fascinating as it was horrifying. Sam couldn’t help but feel a stab of pity for the robot, she imagined Curie must have felt utterly trapped in here void of stimulation that her vast and she imagined chaotic intellects thrived on. She had to admit she found the clear personality that had developed from this mish-mash as alarming as Codsworth’s butler-esque subservience and clear neurosis. It was strange, of all the robots she had met, all the androids AIs, that it was these strange floating balls of metal who were clearly ‘robots’ that would seem the most real to her, aping humanity more exactly than anything back home had ever claimed. Not even Fifth had emulated a fully fledged personality so well. It made her wonder what the hell these Synth’s everyone was so worried about would be like. She imagined with their luck she’d meet one soon enough, if she hadn’t already… given their apparent tendency to ‘blend in’.

Returning to the conversation and the clearly anxious French-robot-woman, “Soon.” Was all she could offer as she patted her on her white metallic chest in what she hoped was a supportive manner, Curie nodded seemingly accepting that and fell back letting her approach Dogmeat. Sam ran her fingers through his fur, ruffling it up and getting a good lick for her troubles as she dropped her head to his nose and let him snuffle at her, making sure she was fine. Just like Jack she noted, only he had slightly more decorum than to actually sniff her… at least in public. Speaking of the man in question, his hand grazed hers and his eyes lit up as she approached. She slid her hands onto his shoulders and gave them an affectionate squeeze as he reached up and held them there his head dropping back into her chest.

“We’ve been given a room, I think we should use it, I’m beat.” She murmured. She knew he had to be too, sleeping on an armchair or the gurney last night won’t have been good for his back. Dogmeat whimpered though.   
“You need to stay here boy.” She patted him. Keep Austin company.” She added and the Dog let out a whuff and lay his head back down on his paws, he looked dejected on his gurney, with a blanket she’d found wrapped around him, but his eyes were fixed on the boy who looked delighted if a little sleepy. Jack nodded and patted both the boy and the dog affectionately, slipping the dog what Sam thought looked like a ‘donapple’, before they headed back to the room. 

The door closed and Sam turned, about to speak only to find Jack literally upon her, his hand went to her cheek and she almost inhaled his tongue with the sudden intensity of his kiss as he pressed his body into her, crushing her close. His hands were almost biting in their intensity as he gripped her hips and she let out a yelp of surprise as he hoisted her up and pressed her into the nearest wall with a ‘thunk’ that winded her for a moment. Then he stopped, going completely still as he held her there, his one hand cradling the back of her head, their noses brushing.

“I thought I asked you to stop trying to die on me!” He rasped, she expected anger, the fury and adrenalin of before but this was worse, he looked tired… worried, like he’d aged a decade in a few days. This wasn’t even that close a call… but perhaps it was just simply one too many in recent days.

“Hey.” She rasped and caught his face, seeing his shutters going down as she pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and touched her forehead to his. She didn’t say anything else, what could she say, their lives out here were one accident, or bad call away from dying either horribly or pointlessly quite possibly both. Neither appealed but it was the truth of life out here. And that was why they had to take every moment they had together. She’d never been entirely on board with the whole idea of ‘living each day like it was your last’, that kind of thinking tended to be a way of justifying reckless behaviour, but out here it wasn’t just an idea or a motto, it was a way of life. 

She kissed him firmly, trying to press the idea that she was ‘alive’ into him as she began shirking off their clothes. He wasn’t his usual self, quiet and introspective instead and she was the one taking the lead this time as she pushed his shirt off him and took the time to run her hands all over his skin, never wanting that to get old. Trying to connect with him and bring him back from the dark place she could see he’d retreated into, as his black eyes followed her with the kind of burning intensity that she’d used to feel from across a room. He was rigid as she pressed her lips to his chest, tracing the hardened planes of his abs, the Wastelander diet sculpting him into something else, something not quite a solider, not anymore. She wrestled with his belt, unclipping it and sliding his pants down, he was commando of course out here where underwear was a special kind of luxury. His dick sprung up hard and weeping, and she wrapped her hand around him and pressed her mouth back to his, there were no words, just silence and the sound of their rasped breaths as she touched him.

She slid down his body, trailing a path of kisses as she went, her hands grasping the toned globes of his ass as she got down on her knees. He was thick and so hard as she breathed over the head watching it twitch, as excitement pooled in her belly and made her thighs clench. His sharp inhale and clench of his cheeks gave him away as she slid him into her mouth without hesitation. He bucked when her tongue hit the tip and she tugged him harder by his ass drawing more of him in as she learnt the taste and feel of him for the first time like this. She opened her eyes at the touch to her face, nothing so pedestrian as holding the back of her hair, Jack touched her jaw with his index finger, gently, reverently in something like wonder, which was in direct contrast with the blistering desire that she saw in his eyes. She tried to show him with every touch of her tongue and her hands to his body that she loved him, loved that she could do this for him now. That maybe there wasn’t a guarantee out here but she could give him this, give him her, for as long as they had. He came hard and she kept him inside her mouth, the first time he’d let himself come like this, and she took all of him. He let out a sound that was close to a groan as she slipped him from her mouth and kissed along the length of him. Her heart pounding, no man had ever made her feel this damn alive or grateful in some weird way, to be giving them a blowjob.

“I love you Jack.” She kissed up to his pelvis and dropped her head to his abdomen as he slid his fingers into her hair and held her there his breathing heavy as he caressed her. He wasn’t soothed she could tell, nor sated, she could feel the tension practically vibrating through him, the clench of his abdominals as she slid her hand back along them and got to her feet. She reached down and took his hand without a word guiding him to the bed… the honest to god, not covered in filth, freshly laundered bed with fluffy pillows and clean sheets. Sam pushed gently against his chest and he followed her instruction, pliant for once and eerily silent as he stared up at her as he sat on the edge of the bed, naked and so hauntingly beautiful. Not that she imagined he’d appreciate her saying that, but she’d always found him to be. Her hand stroked over his newly shaved, smooth cheek and chin, and her fingers slid through his tightly and only recently cropped hair that she hadn’t yet had chance to comment on.

“I like it.” She murmured, “Perhaps I should give this barber a visit.” She smirked and he tugged her by her waist forward, his hands circling her ass and buried his head against her chest.

“Don’t you touch those blonde locks.” He muttered and she smirked. She knew how attached he was ‘growing’ to her now shoulder length hair at night as they curled up together, he seemed to find it relaxing to run his fingers through it. It certainly relaxed her so she wasn’t going to complain about his recent fascination, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun.

“I was thinking of going brunette.” She smirked and he tightened his grip on her ass, parting her legs and peeling off her trousers as he went until he had dragged her down onto his lap. Her attempt to lighten the moment wearing thin she realised as he took a fistful of the still blonde hair and pressed a kiss to it. 

“Not the hair Sam.” He murmured his ‘please’ unspoken and she sighed sensing whilst he was playing it off as a joke, he meant it, almost like that would be a change to far for his whispering sanity. She dropped a kiss to his clean-shaven chin. She was a sucker when he rasped her name like that, she wondered just what he could make her do with that voice, that tone… and her name on his lips.

“Fine. I’ll get a tattoo instead. How does ‘Jarheads rule’ strike you… I was thinking right here.” She stroked the top of her breast and he dropped his lips to kiss the skin there, before sucking the skin into his mouth hard enough to mark and ignored her teasing as he clutched her closer to his chest until every inch of their bodies were in contact.

“How about an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph,” he smirked up at her, “one that says ‘lucky SOB’, cause that’s what anyone… reading it is, namely me?” He quipped and sucked a nipple into his mouth gently caressing the opposite breast as she arched her back and gave him more. It was a good line and she moaned at the feel of him slowly hardening again between her legs with almost breathless anticipation.

She clutched the back of his head to her, her fingers scraping across his scalp through his shorter hair and making him moan around her nipple, sending the sensation straight down to curl her toes. He was good at that she lamented, knowing just how many nights she’d lain awake wondering how he’d touch her, and if he’d approach it with the same level of skill and precision as he did every other delicate physical task she’d seen him perform. She wasn’t and hadn’t been disappointed since finding out, although she figured they still had a lot of exploring to do. This time, he slipped between her legs into position like an answer to a prayer she hadn’t been aware she’d made and she instantly rolled her hips taking him fully inside and then deeper as she locked her legs around his waist guiding his movements in this position. Jack seemed content to slide his hands over her as she rocked their bodies together, lifting up and off him enough to make him clench and tremble with restraint as she dropped back into his lap over and over. It was the first time they’d had a measure of safety and privacy to do this and she relished the chance to take it slow and explore each other together. If they did get back, she’d never underestimate the wonder that was a lockable door and a clean bed. Or internal plumbing for that matter.

He bucked up distracting her from her thoughts as she kissed his mouth swallowing the sound he made as she teased one more orgasm out of him, he gripped her tightly his arms wound fast around her body as he simply held her there, trembling around him her body still throbbing with need, as he softened inside of her. She hadn’t come, but then this position wasn’t ever going to do it for her, this had been about Jack.   
“I love you.” She told him quietly, pressing a kiss to his temple as he held her and she clung to him, letting the idea that she’d been a bite away from death today reach her for a moment as she tightened her hold on him. The trembling started in her hands first as she let herself feel it, the adrenalin and shock finally wearing off not from just today, but maybe from that damn Supermutant as well. It felt like she was constantly having to get her head around the latest life-threatening escape. 

She buried her head in his neck, simply inhaling the calming earthy scent that was all him. She hadn’t realised she was crying until she pulled her head back to find his neck was wet and he gently moved them so that he was lying her down on the bed. His hand rose to cup her face as he lay down beside her.

He didn’t say anything, just locked those impossible eyes of his on her and traced his fingertips over her body. Finding the marks and scars that had come with their new life here with a tenderness she’d always suspected he was capable of. He mapped the path of their recent battles and tried to soothe the fears they both held away. His hand found her inner thighs and she closed her eyes responding to his gentle insistence as she parted them that little more for him. He took his time, touching and teasing, never quite where she wanted, tears continued to slip from her eyes and she wiped them hastily away, not certain why she was crying, only that the outpouring of emotion she felt bubbling inside of her was slightly terrifying. 

“I’ve got you.” He rasped pressing a kiss to her abdomen. Slowly, slowly enough that she was clutching her hair into fists as he lowered a path of kisses across the soft thatch of hair between her legs and then to her inner thigh. It was exquisite torture and she felt almost electrified the pressure that hadn’t exploded building up again to a head as she arched up desperate for his touch. Aching for the relief and the connection that only he seemed to be able to offer. When his lips finally found her there, she keened, her mouth falling open as she tried to hold onto the sound but it escaped her close to a sob. She hadn’t realised how much she’d wanted to feel him like this, or let him feel her.

“Oh God.” She managed, her one hand shooting down to clutch at his hair holding him there, finding she preferred it when she’d had a little more to grab onto. His hands weren’t idle either, sliding over her calves as she bent her legs up beside his head, tracing the paths of her thighs and her hips, one settling between her legs whilst he raised the other to gently brush her breast. It was then, in that exact moment that she knew she had been fooling herself for years, she didn’t want anyone else, couldn’t ‘settle’ for anyone else. The feel of Jack, the man she admired and trusted in just about every way being the one with his head between her shaking legs, making her breath hitch and her stomach flutter, was beyond wish fulfilment. Of course, everything else about this reality royally sucked, but this part was pretty damn amazing.

She felt every inch of his tongue and his touch against her and the man didn’t disappoint. He’d promised her on the roof as she bit down hard on her lip and he swallowed the sound with his mouth, that she’d scream one day when they had a nice, lockable, room, the soundproof vault walls were a bonus apparently.   
“Oh God Jack!” she managed to gasp out again when his fingers slid into her and he all but growled sending the sound thundering through her and she let out a sharp cry of near relief and surprise at the feel of teeth faintly, then she clenched sharply and unexpectedly around him. Her orgasm hitting her hard and powerfully until her whole body trembled as she bucked through it his hands holding her firm his lips drawing every single sensation out of her until she was gasping and clutching at him trying to draw him up.  
“Jack.” She managed her voice breathless trying to put into words what she felt.

“Sam baby.” He murmured, holding her hips tightly as he pressed kisses all along her inner thigh and then gently up her abdomen to her bellybutton. She wasn’t much into pet names, let alone letting someone call her ‘baby’ but when Jack did, in that deep rumble as he pressed himself across her body and sucked deeply on her neck, his hand rising to cup her face as he all but enveloped her, she found it hard to argue, hell she found it hard to think straight with his mouth on her skin.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.” He drew her lips to his and kissed her thoroughly, until she all but sank into the mattress boneless. 

“I have a fair idea.” She rasped, having thought something along those same lines as she’d sunk to her knees earlier. He smiled gently as he stroked her hair from her face and they slowly stilled until they were breathing one another in, nose to nose. His eyes found hers and her breath caught, she read about a thousand things in those eyes and she lifted her hand to stroke his cheek, adoring him a little more.

“We did a good thing here.” She told him, needing him to believe that again.

“I know.” He murmured, and in typical Jack O’Neill style she had no idea if he was agreeing with her, or humouring her.   
“I made you scream.” He winked and pressed a kiss to her temple, nuzzling her ear.

“A little one.” She admitted. “Barely even.” She teased and he chuckled.

“If that’s you challenging me again I concede. I’m an old man, you’re going to kill me.” He sighed and rolled off her and onto his back. “And yes, the irony of me and you and ‘too’ much sex is not lost on me.” He groused sliding his hand into hers and lacing their fingers. 

“I wasn’t going to mention it.”

“Good.” He hummed and closed his eyes. “Because that would be a cliché.”

\---*---

They stayed in the Vault another 2 days, long enough for Austin to spring back as kids often did and for Dogmeat not to. It pained Sam every time she looked at him as he limped over to her to bury his head in her lap panting from exhaustion, that he’d taken this blow for her. He’d never be the same, the disease had spared his life but he was almost crippled with weakness and a bum leg now. In the end, they made the only decision she could live with. Dogmeat was staying in the Vault, where it was safe, and he got a regular diet and a lot of fuss and love. His Wasteland days were over. 

“It’s retirement buddy.” Jack had sighed, patting him and nuzzling against his neck. “You’ve earned it. So many times. I have no idea how the hell we’re going to keep our asses alive out there without you.”

Dogmeat licked him thoroughly, but Sam could see it in the poor creature’s weary expression that it knew its days outside were done. Fortunately, he had Austin, the boy looked like Christmas had come early when Jack had sat them both down together and told them in no uncertain terms that they were to keep one another alive and well down here until he next came back to visit. 

“You want me to look after your dog?” Austin asked, his eyes wide but he was grinning and staring at the beautiful German Shepard. Even with that ridiculous cone collar on Sam could appreciate the aesthetic, he was a beautiful dog, which was a miracle considering what everything else looked like out there. Sam wondered if he hadn’t been bred somewhere like this, away from the damage of the surface and sold up and out.

“Look we had this rule, back in the day. Every kid had to have a dog.” Jack started and Sam felt a smile curving her lips at the old memory. Fond and painful though it was to remember Cassie and to think how she and Janet were getting on without her. Jack leant in close to the kid.   
“I noticed that no one seems to be following that rule. Thought you could do something about that for me.”

Austin smiled, and patted his arm. “I’ll take good care of him, I promise. You’ll come by and visit us won’t you? When he’s a little better, maybe you could take us outside, I’d love to see some of the creatures you told us about!”

Jack’s smile dimmed a little. “No, you wouldn’t kid trust me, I don’t even want to have seen them. Look, Dogmeat will keep you safe, like he’s kept us safe since we ran into him out there and he adopted us. Won’t you boy?” Jack looked at the dog and there was a silent command there. Sam felt him give a whuff of exhaled air, almost a sigh and she patted his side, burying her fingers in his thick fur, realising it might be the last time she could because he wouldn’t be their dog after this. Although she suspected somehow, he’d always be Jack’s dog and that when they came back every now and again she imagined he’d be just as eager to see them and let her hold him like this.

“Of course he will.” Sam hugged Dogmeat close for a minute.   
“He’s a good soldier, they follow orders, even if they hurt.” She would know after all she thought as she pressed a kiss to his fur. “Thank you for keeping me safe.” She hummed and he gave her a parting lick and nuzzle before she had to forcefully drag herself away from the dog before she couldn’t. She couldn’t quite believe she’d let herself get so attached to an animal, especially out here; but he’d saved her life and on more than one occasion she’d awoken to find him wrapped around the two of them; silently and diligently staring into the night, guarding them as they slept. They’d never find another dog like this. But he deserved a place where he could rest and live out his days in peace. 

“We’ll come visit.” Jack smiled, meaning it she knew, after all they had a nice setup here and an offer of a warm bed. “But he’s your dog now, you hear. You treat him right!” It was a command and the boy straightened at that and Sam smiled thinly, Jack couldn’t help but give them. 

“I promise.” Austin’s eyes were wide and hopeful on the dog who gave a whuff of agreement nuzzling into Austin’s proffered hand. He’d always been a quick study, ingratiating himself with his new adoptive parent.

“His names Dogmeat.” Sam offered. “But he responds just fine to Dog. And he likes it when you tuck your fingers into his fur, right here.” She showed him. With a watery smile for the boy, that was all she could manage before tears threatened and she made a hasty retreat from the infirmary and out towards the vault doors before she was collared by anyone else asking for supplies of this and that from outside. She wasn’t sure when they’d be back but she hoped that it wouldn’t be too long. But time had a way of slipping out here even as it seemed to stand still.

They left Vault 81 with one member down, but full bellies, a bed to come back to and a new robot medic. Jack even had a brand new Pip-Boy courtesy of Dr Jacobs as a thank you for their ‘pristine’ blood and DNA samples. Now that they both had them, she could link it to hers and ping his location so that they’d never have to lose one another out here again -at least within a minimum range of a few clicks, which she might be able to improve if she could get back to that satellite array they’d found North of Sanctuary. She even thought she might be able to rig some sort of communication between the two if she had enough time using the radio. It had been worth it she mused and Sam felt a small sense of accomplishment and pride for once in what they’d managed to achieve here. She just hoped that Diamond City, the Emerald Jewel of the Commonwealth wouldn’t destroy that fragile hope she’d just started rebuilding in humanity.


	13. The Atomic Brick Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They finally made it to Diamond City.  
> Fallout Trivia for those that know the game - we meet two more potential Companions here. Guess which one Sam does not take a shine too! Points if you spot/comment on the side quests mentioned in casual conversation - that goes for every chapter x

The remainder of the road to Diamond City was clear enough for which Jack was eternally grateful, apart from a couple of raider ambushes across the usually suspect bridges. He was even starting to enjoy the stroll as the weather was pretty nice, the skies for once clear. Yeah, so the lack of green got old… but it was better than being surrounded by concrete he realised. Which had been his biggest gripe with working at Cheyenne. 

Sam seemed to have a spring in her step which was improving his mood no end, perhaps it was the suddenly more ‘feminine’ presence within the group of the flying Curie, which was ironic given as she was a robot. Although he’d caught Sam looking around once or twice searching only to realise that Dogmeat wasn’t with them. The loss was strangely poignant given as how much he owed that damn dog even in the short time they’d gotten to know him out here. But he took comfort in the fact that he was going to be well taken care of and safe out here, which was something most people didn’t even get. 

“Woah.” Preston pulled up short and squatted down suddenly. 

“What?” Jack hissed, following suit and crab walking to his location to see what he’d seen, watching Sam out of his peripherals as she took up a post opposite them behind a wrecked lorry. Curie wisely hung back; he’d given her a lily-white metal ass a speech about not getting in the way or getting shot when they’d started out which she seemed to be taking seriously. Better than Codsworth, who whilst handy in a fight had been about as stealthy as a bull in a china shop. Or T’ealc in a mood. He felt a small pang of loss for the Big Guy the two of them had always just ‘got’ one another even from the start, he found he missed that out here. Not that Preston didn’t try, but there was a very different relationship there, Preston very much wanted leading, T’ealc, he’d mostly gone along with him because they agreed, they used to agree a lot.

“Behemoth.” Preston muttered breaking his reverie and pointing down from their position on what the signs said used to be the North East Turnpike.

Jack blinked. The biggest damn Supermutant he’d ever seen was stomping around in what he imagined had once been a fairly spectacular lake complete with rustic cabins. He did a momentary doubletake… he could absolutely see himself and Sam in a cabin there. Granted he’d be eaten by the giant mozzie’s (some of those buggers looked people sized) he could see swarming the banks but still… food for thought. 

“No.” Sam hissed. “No way no hell are we going down there to take on that thing.” The last time she’d protested about taking on a bunch of Supermutants he’d regretted his decision not to listen, he wasn’t about to go down there either.

Preston gave him and finally her a look. “I wasn’t suggesting we did.” He shrugged with an I’m not completely insane type gesture. “I was suggesting we keep real quiet and tiptoe round the giant ugly thing.”

“Good.” Sam snapped off, as she glanced over the railing staring down at it from the distance. “I wouldn’t even chance long range, I don’t have a rocket launcher with me and that thing looks like it needs a rocket launcher.” 

Jack sighed. “See I knew we should have packed one for rainy days such as this. Bigger is better after all.” He groused and she smirked at him as he winked back at her.

“Honestly, do you to ever stop flirting.” Preston muttered rhetorically.

“No. Not really.” Jack replied cheerfully. “Not even when we were supposed to.” 

“Why is it so big?” Sam asked.

Jack’s eyebrows went up, oh this day was looking up. “My ‘rocket launcher?” He teased and Sam actually let out a smirk and small chuckle of exasperated amusement that made it totally worth it, as she rolled her eyes at him and he saw her mouth ‘unbelievable’ under her breath. 

Preston shrugged ignoring them. But it was Curie that piped up having clearly totally missed the witty play on words there, startling Jack as she was so damn quiet he hadn’t noticed her appear beside them.  
“I imagin’ it ‘as something to do with it’s enhanced metabolic rates. If indeed siz’ Supermutants as you call them regenerate, it may be in a constant state of cell division.” She told them in her strong French accent and Jack stared back at her blankly, noting Preston was doing something similar.

Sam rolled her eyes. “She means that if they don’t die, they just keep on growing. So I’m guessing that huge thing down there is old and it knows how to stay alive out here better than us.” She did the explaining thing for him she’d always done so well and he grinned, he needed to get her to ‘talk dirty’ to him more often. He wasn’t certain he’d told her about that particular kink yet, but he suspected if her look at him right now was anything to go by, she was well aware of what her technobabble could do for him and his ‘rocket launcher’.

“Noted.” Jack muttered, moving over to the ledge and propping up his sniper rifle and flicking out the stands, it was a nice gun he and Sam had liberated from the same place they’d discovered the sentry bot, all high spec military grade, he put it on a par with Tac-50 for range even if it looked more like an M40. He stared down his scope at the thing. It was an ugly SOB up close. He held his breath and judged the distance, the air was still today. It was almost too easy. 

“Jack?” Came Sam’s questioning voice, after all they had just agreed to leave well enough alone and she’d suggested it would take a rocket launcher. He disagreed, this baby could put down an elephant.

“I’m making the Wasteland safer. Trust me.” He countered, then he squeezed the trigger on the sniper rifle the huge calibre bullet tore from the chamber and he watched as it hit the centre of its face, it must have had some really dense bone structure and a kevlar-thick hide, because the bullet glanced off the skull, made a bit of a mess of it, but the thing was still moving. He re-aimed. Fired again, and again. It took five of his 0.50 calibre bullets to put the thing down by which point he was starting to wonder if Sam had been right and a rocket launcher was the only thing that would do it. By the time it was done all the local wildlife had scattered. He glanced up to find Sam eyeing him with annoyance and he shrugged.  
“I had a shot. I took it.”

“Several times.” She countered with a sigh, as she patted him on the shoulder, smoothing her hand down his arm for a moment affectionately. Clearly still thinking he was an idiot but he appreciated that it seemed a fond notion rather than entirely exasperating. His ex-wife had reached that point once too, before it tipped on over into fully irritating.  
“Let’s go, you probably woke up half the Commonwealth with that racket.” She muttered slinging her own rifle back over her shoulder and keeping her fancy plasma pistol to hand. Just in case everything he’d woken up came calling.

Preston gave him a high five real quiet, down low behind her back and they shared a grin as he slung the rifle in the duffle bag and hoisted it back over his shoulder. 

“I must say, I do not understand ze casual use of violence.” Curie declared finally staring with that eye-stalk thing of hers at each of them.

Jack shrugged. “Shoot first, live longer.” He surmised. “It’s not that complicated.”

“I see. Perhaps ze vault was not so bad non?” Jack was certain he could almost hear a joke in that wry sarcasm at the very least and he smirked. Okay, maybe this robot he could get to liking. The fancy French accent aside.

They came across the first sign as they hit the city boundary. ‘Diamond City, this way.’ And a handy directional arrow. Right beneath that was a second helpful warning. ‘Beware the -’ and a drawing of something big green and holding a human arm. ‘Supermutant’ he interpreted from that rather graphic display. Well on the plus side he now knew that at least most the people that ended up in or looking for Diamond City, could probably read.

Jack caught Sam staring at the sign then into the rubble and ruin amongst the high-rises and buildings still standing, which was all that was left of Boston.  
“That has ambush all over it… we’ll be sitting ducks.” She muttered and Jack couldn’t help but agree. But what choice did they have, this was the way in. This was apparently why people didn’t just travel ‘to and from’ Diamond City out here… or any big settlement for that matter, not without hired muscle and some big ass guns.

Preston grimaced. “You just got to get in past the outer slums. The Diamond City guard have done a pretty good job of keeping a path clear. We stick to the signs and watch above, we’ll be fine.” He told them with an assurance that Jack didn’t feel. But Preston had been here a lot, this was well travelled territory they had no choice. If they couldn’t handle the Wastelands equivalent of a stroll down to the local mall then they had no business reforming the Minutemen anyway.

A nervy hour and only two ambushes later they were almost there. The ambuses where from a Raider camp down something called Hangman’s alley which bought a whole new meaning to the word ‘slum’ and another by a group of the forewarned Supermutants camped out on the top and all around some old fancy Hall. They’d also been accosted by a strung out guy very intent on selling them something to get them ‘fixed up right’, which had turned out to be a butt load of drugs (chems as he’d called them). Jack was half tempted by the Jet, he’d tried one of those inhalers out, sort of accidentally, he’d got one stuffed in his mouth by a raider a while back when out with Preston. It had made everything move super slow mo – handy in a fight and it had certainly been helpful in getting Sam through that nasty shoulder injury. He’d paid the guy in old money because he seemed too stoned to care and cheerfully taken a bunch of jet, some radaway and a handful of other stuff. If nothing else maybe Curie could use them as raw materials for something more useful. He’d noticed her eagerly taking them off his hands and stuffing them inside one of her compartments. Handy he’d noted. He tossed Sam a Rad-X packet, they’d been taking those things fairly religiously since her Pib-Boy had noted the marked improvement in their radiation levels since the first few doses, it seemed to have a cumulative effect in staving off the radiation exposure seeping into their cells. No doubt Curie would tell him it was doing something equally horrible in another area, but he’d take that chance for now, given as that Vault-Doc had told them they were in fairly good, mostly un-irradiated shape.

After those interruptions they decided just to throw caution to the wind and all but jogged down the ruined streets, 4-sets of eyes scanning above and down each side street as they went, the signs getting closer and closer together. Preston got a little singed from one frag mine on a delayed timer that they’d only just managed to dodge. Fortunately, Curie had swooped in on him in seconds, her highly skilled metal appendages had him sterilised, cauterised stitched and doped up before Jack had so much as finished checking all his own limbs were still attached. He’d glanced at Sam and she’d shrugged with a half smile, reminding him again why she was the brains, having seen how useful the med-bot could be out here. All she was missing was a damn siren and flashing lights and they’d have had a fully-fledged paramedic at their heels. He needed to remember to thank her properly later when they were alone… and preferably naked, or not, he wasn’t choosy as long as he had his hands on that delectable… 

“This way.” Sam ushered them onwards breaking his line of thought, as if she knew where his brain had wandered off to. Preston seemed to be over the shock of both the mini-explosion and the treatment. Jack followed her, taking a short cut as he slid over the bonnet of a burnt-out car that had been tossed their way, wincing as his knees took the impact as he landed, not slowing. Now wasn’t the time to ease up, he’d see if Sam was in the mood to ice them down for him later – presuming they had ice… or stone cold water would do, that was normally easy to come by.

Preston hailed out to a guy in what looked like Baseball helmet and padding, although the rifle he held in his hands was real enough. He returned it and pointed North East. They moved quickly, more guards started to appear, some in guard towers or perched on rooftops, others wandering the streets amongst them, alert. Jack took it all in, right down to the massive stadium walls as they headed towards them.

‘Welcome to Diamond City, the Emerald Jewel of the Commonwealth’ was declared in a big banner painted with obvious care and what had to be the biggest and greenest damn building he’d ever seen.

“Wow.” He looked up. “I don’t recall it being so green?” Jack looked to Sam for help who merely shrugged.

“It’s impressive though.” She admitted looking up and shielding her eyes as she stared up into the sun to get a look at the top.

“Next job is to get in.” Preston declared, “They don’t let just anyone in, we’re here on Minutemen business, maybe a bit of trade and connecting up our supply-lines with our farms, so I’ll do the talking if that’s okay General, they know me here.” Preston stepped towards the ticket booth and the array of guards stood there, weapons trained on them, eyes far more alert than he’d seen in a while.

Although it didn’t look like Preston was having a whole lot of luck, in fact there was a rather loud, attractive - in a apocalypse sheik kind of way - mostly cross looking woman in a leather trench coat and honest to god newspaper boy hat that was stomping away from a particularly heated row with a guard, where his ‘mamma’ had been called into question. Jack sidled over to where she was stood arms crossed fuming and eying the guy behind the barrier like he was going to get a good ear pulling soon enough. She caught his approach and eyed him up and down, a smile forming on her face.

“Hey there handsome.” She declared and scanned him so thoroughly he actually felt her unpeeling layers. He grinned, letting it have the twinkle Sam had told him could literally charm her pants off.

“Hey yourself.” He gave her a once over, she was pretty, short bob of brown hair, little short for his type, but for the Wasteland she was remarkably well put together. “Spot of bother getting in?” he quipped and she sighed, “Guy at the gates being a little stubborn today huh?” he offered commiserating her rather loud display.

She stepped closer. “That’s Danny.” She huffed. “He’s a good kid but he doesn’t know what’s best for him. And letting me back in, that’s best for him.” She blew out an exasperated breath, catching her hair with it.  
“It’s the damn mayor,” she threw her arms up, clearly he wasn’t popular with her, but news of a mayor was something Jack banked. “So, I might have published a piece from a very reliable source that indicated he may be a Synth. Turns out he was less than appreciative. Had me evicted… can you believe it? Whatever happened to freedom of the press huh!”

Jack looked around. “Think that probably went up in nuclear flames with the rest of the Country.” He noted smirking, damn reporters. Couldn’t escape them even in an apocalypse apparently.

“Look. Your trader’s right?” She asked, giving Sam and Preston a once over as well, Jack decided not to correct her, he wasn’t sure ‘trade’ was the right description but whatever worked. “They’ll let you in eventually, but given as they’re having a stubborn day you may need to grease the wheels a little. How about I help?” She offered and Jack sensed he was about to be Shanghai’d into something.  
“Danny there owes one of our traders a rare baseball. I just so happen to have one. You use it to ‘smooth’ over our re-entry with me as your ‘guest’ and we’ll call it even?” She proposed.

Jack sighed, “Show me this baseball.” He held his hand out and she pulled it from within her pocket and held it out, but didn’t let him touch as she revealed the signed ball, signed by most the team by the look of it. Not that he recognised half the names, not really his team. He sighed. “That legit?”

She rolled her eyes. “And if it’s not…?” She let that hang and he sighed. “Please these simple fools don’t care, I got a pen and a roster. They just want it to stick in their display case, its only worth what their willing to pay for it these days, as a collectable. The balls genuine, mint condition cracked it out of a safe a few days back myself.”

Jack glanced back to see Preston giving him a look that suggested it wasn’t going well. Looks like bribery it was then. He turned back to the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Piper.” She grinned wide sensing she’d gotten her deal.

He nodded. “I’m General Jack O’Neill of the Minutemen.” He kind of liked the way that rolled off the tongue, particularly as he felt he’d earned that ‘General’ title himself rather than it being honorary, although if you’d have told him a few months ago he’d enjoy the title of General quite so much he wouldn’t have believed it. 

Piper seemed impressed though. “Are you now?” her eyes practically lit up and she slipped her arm in his. “Dashingly handsome and a leader of men, consider me charmed.”

Jack smiled and pointed to Sam. “The woman with the really big gun over there’s my better half. Play nicely.” He instructed and Sam sent Piper a short wave as they approached. Piper stiffened slightly beside him but didn’t remove her arm, apparently having decided to commit to whatever little scheme to get them inside. Sam gave her a short one over but didn’t comment on their positions as he rolled his eyes.

“Everything okay General?” Preston asked looking between them as he re-joined Sam.

“Oh peachy. Piper here is going to be our escort. She has a little something to grease the palms of the friendly neighbourhood guards there.”

Piper was good, even Jack had to admit that as he stood looking a little bit like arm candy and hired muscle beside her, whilst she sweet talked and generally ground poor ‘Danny’ down until he relented and took the Baseball, looking more than a little pleased with himself. Sap.

“Just don’t cause any more trouble Piper, or your new friends. Or the Mayor won’t just throw you out next time.”

“Scouts honour!” Jack answered for her and gave the young guard a mock salute. It must have had some impact because the lad straightened his spine and attempted to return one with a formal nod.

“See. Easy.” Piper murmured in his ear and he smoothly detached himself from her grasp. She turned as Sam and Preston joined him. Curie taking up the rear as she made idle comments to Sam who was mostly giving her lip service responses about what they were looking at inside. Jack’s eyes scanned the area and returned quickly to the woman who’d stopped in front of him, hand on her hip and a provocative almost hopeful smile on her lips.

“So I’ll guess we’ll see you around then?” Jack pressed. He knew it was a mistake the minute it came out that way and he fought the instinct to wince.

“Oh you can count on it General Hotstuff.” She all but purred giving him another once over. “So the Minutemen are back huh, I could definitely get a bit of traction out of that in the paper, maybe you’d be willing to do an interview sometime, spread the word? People need a bit of hope around here” She finished obviously playing to his sympathies.

Preston clapped him on the shoulder and forestalled his obvious upcoming rejection of the offer. “He’d love to. The General here is also a former Vault dweller, a man out of time, looking to bring back the noble past.” Preston grinned all teeth at her. “Has a ring to it doesn’t it.”

Piper looked like she had just won the lottery. “It’s a date.” She blew him a kiss, “Don’t worry I’ll find you again handsome when it’s time to collect.” Then she sauntered off glancing behind her every now and then as she swayed her hips in that leather getup in a way that was only provocative. Sam discreetly pinched his ass and he nearly jumped out of his skin as she squeezed with just a touch more force than was strictly necessary as she passed within an inch of him, as she swept in to get a closer look at the place that passed for a City around here.

“What?” he exclaimed, pleading ignorance, and she smirked blowing him a kiss and turning her attention back to Curie. He kind of liked that she didn’t make a big deal of it, just quietly reminded him that his ass was hers. Not that there was ever a doubt of course but still, it was nice to be appreciated, lord knows he had to put up with enough of Sam’s would-be suitors over the years.

With Piper out of the way and hopping down the steep steps of what had clearly once been the stands Jack took a moment just to admire human ingenuity, and its ability to make-do when needed. A whole town now sat in the cradle of the old stadium. Complete with bars, shops, smells…. wow his nose twitched, that smelt like burgers. There were apartments made of metal and wooden shacks built up into the stands, and as they made their way down and were confronted with children running between their legs, travelling merchants hocking their wares. People. Just people he reasoned, rich and poor, working and escaping.

“Nice.” He let out, relieved to find something of civilisation left. Even if it was noisy and smelly and busy, busier than he’d seen anything since coming here. There were people seemingly crammed in everywhere.

Preston clapped his hands together in clear enjoyment at their slightly stunned expressions. “Why don’t you two go check out the area, I’ll go speak to a few of the food vendors about their supply-lines, see what we can do to get in with this crowd. I bet they’d kill for some of our fresh produce at a fair price.” Preston waved Curie over, “Doc,” he called out clearly borrowing Jack’s nickname for the bot, “Why don’t you come with me, having a robot will help my respectable image.” Curie floated after him with an affirmative and Jack was surprised when Sam’s fingers threaded into his and he squeezed back appreciatively and tugged him onwards.

“Come on General Hotstuff.” She teased. “I want to see the Big City.” She grinned, her eyes twinkling and he realised that this might have been the most hopeful he’d seen Sam in a long time, like a weight had been lifted from her, in seeing a thriving community, surviving against all odds. Granted it was more like the Favela’s of Brazil or Mumbai than any bustling modern-day City they were used to, but it was alive at least. Somehow this seemed a more natural way of living than the vault and for a moment Jack wondered if he’d done the right thing leaving Dogmeat underground, but at least there he was safe, warm, dry, and that kid wasn’t about to let him get served up for lunch.

They walked hand in hand strolling through what Diamond City had to offer. The fact that literally the first two shacks that you came to were for the local paper and for an ‘all Faith’s’ church he thought spoke a lot about what kind of place this was. Sam though was drawn inwards, towards the people, those hocking wares and equipment, he turned around for a minute to talk to the weapons trader and she was deep in conversation with the parts trader. He sighed, rolling his eyes and watching the Vendatron that Preston was getting nowhere with as he seemed to come to the same conclusion and headed towards the meat vendor.

Jack decided the Vendatron wasn’t great for deals, but it looked like it could whip up a decent noodle soup. He ordered three Nuka Cola’s and settled into a seat waiting for the others to wrap up. His eyes scanned the area again, alighting on the signs for security, the ‘Valentine Detective Agency’ and the missing posters that whilst not obvious, were everywhere. Along with old copies of the rag that Piper obviously wrote for. He picked one up and read through the headline, ‘Is your Neighbour a Synth?’ His dislike of the woman grew a little more with that, after all the last thing this place needed was a match tossed into it, the whole place was likely to go up with an accusation like that. But then, people were afraid, he could almost feel it, they were carrying on but underneath it was eating at them. He’d been in warzones, that weren’t yet warzones, right before the trouble started and he could feel that same dangerous fear and frustration and helplessness building here. This ‘Institute’, whatever it was, had everyone on edge. And even these hallowed Baseball walls it seemed couldn’t protect you from the bogey man.

Sam slid into the seat next to him and slipped her hand to his cheek leaning in to place a soft but possessive kiss on his lips that left him tingling. It was still strange that she would just reach over and do that. He still on occasion had to check himself when he went to touch her, before remembering he could. “What was that for?” he rasped.

“You bought me lunch, I think that might be a first for us.” She shrugged and turned to her meal, her shoulder brushing his and he glanced around, noticing the rather crestfallen looking fella that must be the baseball enthusiast. Jack gave him a nod… ‘I see you, seeing her, seeing me with her’ kind of nod which was returned and he settled back into his seat. 

“Get anywhere with the vendor?” He pressed when she didn’t volunteer anything, just ate her soup quickly, it was pretty decent, he’d hate to guess what was in it, but other people were eating it so it clearly wasn’t making them all keel over daily.

“She has some decent parts and she’s willing to tag onto the supply run if Preston gets it set up, mostly it’s the copper I’m interested in, the City has a tonne of it, she and her crew go out and strip it from the surrounding buildings regularly enough. Be useful if we want to keep the electronics working particularly the turrets in Sanctuary and at Abernathy’s farm. Or whatever the Castle has or needs.”

“That’s good.” He took a swig of the ‘not nearly as good as Coke’ cola.

“What have you been doing whilst you sat here…?” She nudged his leg gently with hers and he gave her a sidelong glance. 

“Nothin’.” He ventured. And she snorted. 

“Please this is me you’re talking to. I know that look. That’s your ‘something stinks and I better not get shot look’.”

He nodded and ducked his head, having a lover that could read you like a book this early into an official relationship was certainly new. His ex-wife nor any of his ex-girlfriends had ever been able to read him half so well. But then, maybe he didn’t feel the need to shield Sam from his inner workings in quite the same way. She accepted his deep dark and crazy. Worse she understood most of it.

“This whole City’s afraid.” He told her finally. “It’s subtle, probably started out as the bogey men hiding under the bed kind of fear. Now though, it’s starting to get a more ‘the Russian’s’ are coming vibe.” He slid the paper her way and she scanned the contents.

“It’s just propaganda, or worse paranoia from extreme isolationism. Like you said bogey men.” She sighed. “People make up a fear they can rationalise to justify the horrors they have to deal with on a daily basis. This is controllable for them. It’s safer than admitting they are living in a tin can, surrounded by monsters on a dying world.” Sam told him matter-of-factly, almost emotionless, but he wasn’t fooled she was starting to care what happened to the people in this world and how most people simply didn’t. He wanted to reach over and touch her for a moment, but they were being observed as the ‘newcomers’ which meant it wasn’t a good idea.

He nodded, looking around darkly. “You know it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you?”

\---*---

The ‘Surgery’ didn’t look promising, Sam stuck her head inside the basement and called out. There was no response so she headed down.  
“Madam. I do not think this place is open.” Curie told her pointlessly and Sam waved her quiet as she descended the stairs. She’d left Jack and Preston to do their ‘Minutemen’ thing when they’d finally run across the town Mayor, a big man by the name McDonough. Like everything in Diamond City he seemed a little too larger than life and Sam had, had about enough of that conversation 5 seconds in. She’d excused herself before Jack had the chance to and grabbed Curie to go do a little more looking around, just ‘the girls’. Which was how she’d seen a rather suspicious looking robot in a fedora hat of all things – obvious by the frame work beneath his clearly false skin - slinking around what she assumed was the local clinic. It was just early evening and the vendors were all closing up, so there weren’t many people about. 

“I do not think it is wise to follow this machine down into a dark hole.” Curie told her bluntly and Sam ignored her, thinking it was a bit rich to be calling him ‘a machine’.

The room looked like a surgical bay, if Sweeny Todd was performing the surgery. There was a blood-stained surgical chair, an array of ugly looking instruments and a general smell that meant Sam strongly doubted anyone came in here to get ‘well’. 

“I must once again point out that I believe you are being especially reckless.” Curie hissed at her and Sam spun her temper snapping, she was going to add ‘coward’ to her list of emotives. 

“Then go.” She hissed back. Pointing to the stairs. “No one is forcing you to be here.”

Curie’s large robotic eyestalk eyes swivelled to her unnervingly. “The General is.” She replied. “I believe his exact instructions were, ‘stick to her like glue, or I’ll stick something inside your chasses that will go boom’.”

“Colourful.” Sam admitted, seeing the woman…well, robot’s point. 

Curie’s eyestalk moved, one followed swiftly by the other. “I am detecting heat signatures directly below us.” She announced. “I believe there is another floor.”

Sam glanced down and her eyes shot around the filthy room strewn with half broken and used medical supplies. It didn’t take her long to find the concealed cellar entrance beneath the rug in the corner. Staring down at the cellar steps she had a moment to consider how wise this was, when she heard a voice cry out and a gunshot. She picked up her arm and sent a quick message off to Jack’s PipBoy, God knows when he’d get it, wasn’t exactly used to having to check his inbox and there was a lot around here to distract him.

“Shit.” She swore and hurried down the stairs, a 10mm pistol gripped firmly in her hands with Curie right behind her. The sight that greeted her, by the light of her Pip-Boy and Curie’s blowtorch wasn’t encouraging.

The robot with the trench coat and fedora hat was knelt on the floor his hand to his chest and clearly struggling having had a massive bullet tear through his chest and whatever his inner circuitry was made up of. Sam froze her gun whipping up to point at the man holding the gun, he was clearly the ‘surgeon’. He had a bloody lab coat and face mask on and held a snub-nose revolver in one hand and a wicked scalpel in the other. At his feet was a very dead, mostly mutilated young man.

It turned Sam’s stomach and she had a split second when the maniac Doctor’s eyes flashed to her to make the decision, he almost looked like he wanted her to, she saw the clear intent to shoot her if she didn’t. She put a bullet straight between his eyes and he fell back dead without further protest.

“Oh great. Just great.” The robot on the floor growled, hobbling to his feet and grabbing her arm. Sam pointed the gun at his head and he backed off rapidly.  
“You never heard of due process lady?” he snapped at her in the uncanniest Bostonian accent she’d heard yet. In fact, looking at his half covered robotic face with the clear metal skeleton peeking out as he tipped his brimmed hat and took in the now dead Doctor, she got the distinct impression he was annoyed with her. Not quite what she’d have expected from someone who’s life she just saved.

“Oh my. How unfortunate.” Curie murmured hovering somewhere behind her and flying round to get a good look at the two deceased bodies.

Sam didn’t put the gun away, but she did lower it focusing on the ‘other’ robot in the room and letting her annoyance show. “The deranged lunatic, had a gun and a scalpel and there’s a dead man at his feet, who I can safely say didn’t do that to himself.” She snipped, “My choices were shoot him or you. I’m starting to regret that decision.” Sam snipped and he snorted clearly amused as he backed off hands up in surrender, his eyes drifting to Curie for a moment, she’d have said in curiosity, but she hadn’t got a clue what was going on behind his robotic eyes. 

“I’m Detective Nick Valentine and I was hired to find that poor sap.” He indicated the dead and mutilated body. “And ideally bring the perpetrator, if there was one, of his supposed kidnapping to justice.” He shook his head. “Guess I won’t be doing that anymore.”

Sam glanced down at the bodies, her eyes lingering on the surgeon, a man that was supposed to help people, not hurt them like this. “I’d say he got what he deserved.” She thought Janet would back her up on that, any physician that harmed rather than healed deserved, it was something they’d both vehemently agreed on.

“And you are?” He glared, crossing his arms at her, “To make such sweeping decisions like that on behalf of us all.” He snarked giving her attitude and she frowned, she was getting a distinct Detective Noir Film vibe from his crabby holier than though attitude. Although that could be the hole in his chest.

“Colonel Carter.” She smiled thinly by way of introduction.

“Ah military. That would explain the shoot first ask the sensible questions never approach.” He snarked. Ouch. She wasn’t usually on the receiving end of that line.

“Bite me… Private Dick.” Sam replied with sarcasm, losing her patience with a damn robot judging her. “I just saved your life, or did you forget he already shot you once?”

Nick pulled back his beige duster and showed her the bullet hole that had just impacted off his metal frame and was crumpled lodged there. “Wasn’t exactly a fatal wound, now was it.” 

Sam frowned slightly, “Right, what are you exactly?” She glanced at him again, then back to Curie. “She’s a robot… your what, an android?” She pressed, a suspicion niggling at her.

“I’m a Synth sweetheart.” Valentine told her, the derision packed into that one statement made her doubt he was anything but human. 

She unclipped her plasma pistol and aimed it at his head, a gun which she knew from experience worked just fine on robots… she’d assume Synth’s too. So, these were the things everyone was so worked up about. She frowned, how the hell had Marcie thought she was ever something like this… he couldn’t pass for human if he’d tried, half his frame was showing and his skin was clearly fake. She was frankly unimpressed. Fifth’s illusion had only failed when he opened his damn mouth. Granted this one seemed to have the opposite problem.

“You going to shoot me to?” He stood there cock-sure and almost resigned to it, staring at her with those yellow machine eyes, waiting for her to decide.

Sam blinked. “No.” She bit out. “I’ve just not seen one like you before.” Or at all, but given the backstory she’d decided to stick to and her history with synth’s, she wasn’t going to mention that.

He smiled, the expression pulling on his plastic skin almost garishly. “That’s cause there ain’t Synth’s like me. I’m a one-of-a-kind doll. Woke up in a scrap heap thinking I was Nick Valentine, a BADTFL Cop back in the day, right here in Boston. Till the first settlement I came across handed me a mirror and pointed out I wasn’t quite the man I remembered.”

“So you’re what a copy then, of the real person… or a real consciousness inside a machine brain?” She queried and he cocked his head, but didn’t correct her insinuation that he somehow ‘wasn’t real’.

“Nothing so fancy as that I’m afraid.” Valentine huffed, “I just got a bunch of his memories. I may not be the original Nick but I’m here now. I remember being a cop and I’m good at it, so I help these people out. In return they ignore the fact that I’m not made of flesh and blood. Mostly.”  
“So your like Robo-cop.” She murmured and he frowned obviously not getting the reference. But he let out a bark of a laugh, clearly amused despite that. 

“I suppose that’d be one way of putting it.” He frowned at her as if trying to work her out as though her responses were completely atypical. Probably were.

The ‘been there done that’ of this situation irked her and she found herself taking a step away as he walked around the cellar, taking in the ‘crime scene’ as he clearly saw it. Three times she’d had her consciousness transferred into a machine, for all intents and purposes. Once by Harlan, once by an alien entity and finally by Fifth. But she didn’t feel a flash of sympathy for Valentine… he was the by-product, the man she needed to sympathise with was probably long dead, this was just the copy wandering around she realised. She looked up to find Valentine eyeing her intently.

Then it hit Sam. Quite literally, what her problem with this machine was. His accent the demeanour they were all very much his own, but the swagger, the behaviour in a weird way he reminded her of Pete. Unfortunately that memory, combined with what he was suggesting… A human mind inside a machine. Now where had she heard that before. 

He was staring at the body, clearly thinking that this was the source of her distraction and sighed. “What a waste, honestly, this was the best damn Doc we had in Diamond City…” He reached over and started routing through his pockets pulling out a bunch of chems. Sam frowned, she hadn’t seen ones like that.

“What is that?” Curie asked the question she’d been going to. “I have not seen that particular variety of medication before. What disease does it cure?”

Valentine gave Curie a look then looked around her and back to Sam. “This broad for real?” he asked and Sam nodded.

“She’s fresh out of a vault, give her a break, she’s not discovered all the joys of surface life yet.” She replied, surprised at the bitterness in her own tone.

“This ain’t no cure Lady.” Valentine huffed. “It’s a poison of a sort.”

“Oh please, non. I am Curie, you must call me this.” She introduced herself and Sam almost rolled her eyes, Valentine actually seemed to startle at the formality. 

“Well. Madam Curie, as I was saying this ain’t no cure, it’s a drug. Nasty one too. The kids are calling it Buffjet. Makes you hyper aware and boosts your endurance. I’d heard rumour the good Doctor here was sampling his own merchandise, looks like rumours were true for once. Rotted his nervous system away, that’s one high he ain’t coming down from.” Valentine concluded throwing a plastic sheet of some kind over what was left of the body and Sam looked away. She was a lot more familiar with dead bodies than she had been when coming here, but she realised darkly that she had barely noticed after having dismissed him as dead. It hadn’t occurred to her to cover him up anymore. 

“My goodness. That poor soul.” Curie murmured standing over the Doctor.

Sam cleared her throat. “He was a murderer,” she reminded, “You want to try your robotic brain at sympathy, direct it at the innocent victim lying in pieces. He didn’t ask for this, and he didn’t deserve to be carved up in a basement by a lunatic stoned out of his mind.” Sam bit off, the horrific murder and swift justice as well as the two robots was putting her on edge.

“No one ever deserves it in my experience.” Nick took his hat off and bowed his head for a moment, Sam was momentarily stunned… was he praying?  
He raised his head and replaced his hat, looking to her once more. “I gotta take care of this, I’ll call the security get them to take down the missing flyers for this guy, file a report with them. Let em know we’re going to need a new Doctor in this place.”

“I have medical training, perhaps I could offer aid?” Curie declared and Sam sighed, shaking her head, she could see that the med-bot was already in her element and she didn’t want to stay here.

“Do as you want, but it stinks down here, for those of us with a sense of smell anyway.” She looked pointedly at the two robots. “Why don’t you two do your thing I’m going to go see what else Diamond City has to offer, other than murder.” She all but growled and pushed past Nick Valentine and his ridiculous get up to climb the cellar stairs. 

She didn’t stop until she was outside, gasping for air where she promptly stumbled to the side of the ‘street’ and threw up in the corner. She’d seen worse, but for some reason that got to her. Maybe it was the ease with which she’d shot that poor bastard. Murderer or not he was clearly out of his mind. Maybe that damn robot- Synth, Valentine was right, maybe she could have shot him somewhere non-fatal, she had the skill as her precision shot through his forehead showed. But apparently she didn’t seem to have the inclination anymore. She’d seen him clearly over the dead body, covered in blood eyes wide as saucers and a mad grin on his face. In that moment she hadn’t wanted him to carry on living. So she’d fixed that problem. What the hell did that make her now? She was a soldier. Or at least she had been, she carried out her orders, and she fought for her side. Problem was out here, there wasn’t sides. There was just her and a gun and a moral compass that was getting steadily more screwed up.

Her dark thoughts had carried her to a dingy back-alley tavern she realised, staring at the neon ‘bar’ sign. Well it was certainly a part of civilisation she hadn’t expected to be seeing again. She glanced down at her PipBoy, Jack’s location was clearly displayed, as was his apparent inability to open his mail… or notice it. He seemed to be up in the bleachers, probably still having talks with the Mayor. She glanced back at the bar and the sign ‘The Dugout Inn’. If he wanted to find her, he’d be able to look just as easily at his own PipBoy now and it wasn’t like she needed his permission. Oh he’d be pissed at Curie though for abandoning her, but the robot had clearly found another distraction. Two in fact if she’d read it right in both the potential Doctor’s post, and Nick Valentine himself.

Besides… bars were always the best place to find out the ‘real’ dirt on any city.


	14. All That Glitters

The bar smelled like every other bar she’d ever been which was oddly comforting as she descended the dimly lit ramp inside the tight corridor, smoky, with the acrid smell of sweat, beer and too many people crammed into one place. She looked around as she stepped down and felt something close to a smile, there were armchairs, a genuine bar, stocked to the brim with alcohol, people sat around smoking and playing card games. There was even a duke box with a woman’s voice coming out the speakers crooning her heart out to some 50s style number in the corner and giving the whole place an ambiance she hadn’t expected. She even thought she spied a pool table in the far corner. Her heart momentarily stopped, this was a little slice of normality and she could see why there were so many people in here. She ignored the couple of cat calls she got as she crossed to the bar, trying not to feel the urge to pull her leather jacket tighter around her. The bar tender, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a relatively rough look nodded at her, his denim jacket making her feel nostalgic she noted but he at least had an easy smile for her.

“New face in town. Welcome. What can I get ya?” He offered with a strong accent.

Sam slid into a barstool. “What you got?” Provocative perhaps and she smiled at the grin that seemed to curve his lips. She could do charm too she thought, just like Jack, although when she tried charm it tended to end her in more hot water than if he did.

“For you pretty lady.” He reached down and bought up a pale bottle. “Bobrov’s best moonshine.” He told her grinning, his accent distracting her perhaps Eastern European. Which was interesting, maybe there was travel after all if he came from so far afield, perhaps there were other pockets of civilisation out there. Or maybe they’d just grown up around that accent right here.

“So who’s Bobrov and why should I drink his moonshine?” She replied, not saying no as he poured her a glass in an honest to-God glass tumbler.

“I am lapochka.” He let out a bark of laughter, and she wondered what that meant, deciding it sounded Russian perhaps, or Polish, although his grin had turned more into a leer. “You can call me Vadim. This is our place, my brother and mine and you are most welcome to brighten it up anytime.” He grinned leaning in close and pointing to what Sam realised was a man who looked practically identical, only slightly more kempt in a dirty tan suit. He gave her a look and returned to polishing a glass from the other end of the bar.   
“That’s Yefim, he’s no fun.” He dismissed his brother, drawing her attention back to him as he leaned in closer to her and she took the glass of clear liquid eying it suspiciously. It smelt like Vodka… strong vodka, with a hint of cherry maybe?

“This is a nectar of the Gods. Will be knocking your socks right off.” He let out a jovial laugh and Sam couldn’t help but grin, he was pleasant enough for a bartender in the ass end of nowhere.   
“Best moonshine in the Commonwealth, we had to start renting out rooms here just to give our customers a place to sleep it off! Ha!” He barked out another booming laugh.

“Sounds good.” She replied clinking her glass against the bottle he held out and then she knocked back the whole thing in one go. It stung like all hell on the way down and she struggled with her reaction not to cough, but she patted her chest. Her eyes popping wide.

“Wow.” She exclaimed, as she exhaled, wondering if she had any lining left in her throat after that. 

“See. I told you, good no?” He poured her another. She slammed that one back too. Her alcohol tolerance was better than most humans thanks to Jolinar… it took a bit more effort if she wanted a good buzz.

“You trying to get the lady drunk Vadim?” Yefim, the identical brother had approached and was giving him a recriminating look.

“The lady’s trying to get herself drunk.” Sam replied realising quietly that was exactly what she wanted as she waved him for another.

“And can the lady pay with something other than those big baby blues and her ample charms?” Yefim snipped, looking less impressed with said charms than his brother. Sam snorted batting those big blue eyes that sometimes got her in trouble and placed a solid silver pocket watch down on the bar.

He gave her an eyebrow raise that made her think strongly of T’ealc and she ramped down the emotion. She was here to drink not remember.   
“Enjoy your drinking experience here at the Dugout.” Yefim smiled thinly, scooped up her offered payment and moved away. She took that as a deal.

“You were right. No fun at all.” Sam smirked at Vadim, gaining a consipirational grin for her efforts as he poured her another.

“Oh yes, he is life and soul of every party.” Vadim rolled his eyes sarcastically, “But we don’t let him spoil our fun eh. You were telling me best way to get you to rent a room and give me spare key.” His dark eyes twinkled as he sent her a long slow wink and Sam felt slightly bad because there honestly wasn’t enough moonshine in this bar for that.

Sam smirked, pointing at him around her glass as he tried it on. “I really wasn’t.”

He shrugged, “Fair enough, I leave the bottle ya. You come seem Vadim if you want someone to help you to a room when it takes your legs from under you.” He blew her a kiss and sauntered off with a wink to deal with the customers that had accumulated at his bar whilst he’d flirted. Sam watched him with a wry look and sighed down at her glass.

When Sam lifted her head she realised a woman in a sparkly red low cut dress had slid into the stool next to her. “You know, if Prince Charming over there isn’t to your taste, I’d be happy to show you a good time.”

Sam blinked, slightly stunned. “I’m…” she didn’t quite know what to say to the pretty dark haired young woman giving her most definite signals, fiddling with a fetching scarf around her neck and eyeing her like Jack usually did.   
“Erm, thank you, but I really just came to drink.” She politely declined, it was probably one of the better attempts at chatting her up, so of course it was from a woman. Not that she had anything against dating women, it just hadn’t ever really floated her boat, so to speak. And there was Jack of course. She felt a pang of longing, she’d actually have quite liked to sit here and drink with his hand on her knee. Telling everyone in the bar that she was off limits without saying a word, so she could just wallow in peace. She considered whether it was too late to shove her bandana on and go skulk in a dark corner.

“Yes well, there’s a line of boys over there looking to disturb your lonely drinking session.” She pointed and Sam turned her head slowly, noting that more than a few men were looking her way. She looked back down and took a longer drink this time. Definitely should have worn the bandana and probably one of Jack’s damn hats… he was accumulating them out here.  
The woman next to her laughed gently at what Sam was sure was her sudden stiff posture. “A woman drinking alone… for some reason men always seem to take that as a damn invitation don’t they. When what they really need to read is the ‘Fuck Off I’m Drinking’ sign they’d have no problem seeing on a man doing the same.” She told her and Sam looked her over again. She was attractive, older than Sam had initially thought with lines just starting to take the shine off her looks. The dark gently cascading locks of her hair were beautifully silky though and Sam wondered if she might have some hair product to trade or tell her how to make, God knows her own hair could do with some TLC, this was exactly why she didn’t like to keep it long.

“I take it you can read that sign just fine though?” Sam prompted taking a sip of her drink this time, she wasn’t trying to be rude, but the woman had said it herself. She wanted to drink alone.

“I could. But the guy I work for told me a gal way too pretty and quick on the trigger finger was likely going to wind up in trouble today. Asked me to keep an eye on her.” She gave her a knowing but not unkind smile. “Turns out I’m okay with that.” She shrugged.

Sam sighed, bowing her head slightly she had a suspicion. “The guy you work for, wouldn’t happen to be a Synth missing half his face, who fancies himself a cop would it?” Sam grimaced at the slightly affronted look at her description on the woman’s face. 

“Detective Valentine’s a good man.” She corrected.

Sam snorted and downed her drink this time. “He’s not a man at all!” She slammed the glass down with a little more force than necessary.

“Yeah… he said you two didn’t exactly hit it off.” She added.

Sam rounded on her. “Other than to flirt with me, did you actually have a point?”

“I need a better one?” She retorted, coming right back and Sam was mildly impressed. In fact she was sort of flattered, and grateful, if she was honest she hadn’t had a chance to talk to a woman in a long time. Marcie didn’t count, the woman had loathed her. It was kind of refreshing.

“My God, your persistent.” Sam muttered. “But I am very much not available.”

“Fair enough, you ever become available, you let me know.” The woman gave her a smile that was far too inviting to be a casual offer and Sam actually blushed. 

“I don’t know your name.” Sam replied and offered out the bottle of moonshine in front of her that her silver had apparently bought, as a glass was deposited in front of her new friend by a smirking Vadim who winked again at her. Her mystery woman nodded in approval and Sam filled it, because she wasn’t going to sit here and drink the whole bottle herself.

“Ellie. Ellie Perkins.” The young woman, Ellie apparently, looked expectantly at her waiting for the polite side to kick in.

“Samantha Carter.” Sam replied, extending her hand, they shook, and Ellie’s hand lingered a moment longer than was polite, but her smile was warm so Sam allowed it.

“So, you want to tell me Samantha, why you got such an issue with Nicky, or is it Synths that are the problem?”

\---*---

Jack stared at the sight before him with some bemusement and concern. Mostly he was just tired, it was late and it had taken him far too long to make his PipBoy tell him whereabouts Sam was located, she’d been gone for hours. In the end he’d wound up asking the locals where he could find the new hot blonde in the leather getup. She’d been surprisingly easy to locate after that.

“So… you want to tell me how exactly it is that you’ve wound up in jail?” He growled through the bars and Sam blinked up at him, sporting a clearly split lip, some bloodied knuckles and as he glanced at her cell mates a brunette woman in quite a dress and a scrawny looking guy. “And who your new friends are?” He asked, with a quirked eyebrow, suddenly feeling all of those fifteen or so years he had on her.

Sam blinked up at him, looking thoroughly hung over and more than a little pissed off. “It’s a security lock up.” She replied, “Not jail.” Said with far too much snark for someone expecting him to bail her out of this ‘not jail’.

Jack kicked the very solid metal bars surrounding her hoping he’d made his point that a cage was a cage. “A bar fight. Really?” he groused, quirking an eyebrow. Although she had form for those he recalled fondly.

“This the reason you’re not available?” The petite looking dark haired woman beside her who looked equally worse for wear, but not banged up grinned up at him. “If so, fair enough.” She gave Sam a look and they grinned and started laughing about something he literally had no clue about, before simultaneously seeming to hold their heads as the clear hangover made itself apparent.

“Does anyone… want to explain this? Anyone?” He turned to the guy in with them. “And who this is?”

“I’m Travis… they were helping me.” He explained as if that made sense somehow.

Jack frowned. Glancing at Sam who was deliberately not looking at him. “Wait a minute… Travis... You’re the guy from the radio.” He pointed at him accusingly and stepped closer to the bars. He hadn’t forgotten promising to stuff this guys radio where the sun didn’t shine.

The kid stood and met Jack at the bars. “Yeah. I am, you got a problem with the show, save it. It’s my radio and I’ll play what I like. You don’t have to listen.” He snapped.

Jack took a beat. Okay, that didn’t sound like the stammering nervous kid he’d been on the radio. Sam let out a whoop and started clapping.

“See Travis!” She exclaimed grinning like an idiot. “I knew you had it in you.” She declared and the woman next to her started clapping too and Jack looked between them and the rather scrawny looking lad who was beaming back at them with a thumbs up, sporting a shiner of his very own and he had honestly never felt like he was more in the twilight zone than right now. What the hell?

Preston approached him as he stepped away. “I think they’re still drunk as skunks.” Jack muttered, pointing back over his shoulder at them all as they seemed to fall about the place laughing and congratulating themselves on something… he had no idea what.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Preston shook his head looking faintly impressed into the cage. “Between them they downed a bottle of Borobov’s best moonshine, then somehow with the barkeep Vadim’s encouragement, they convinced Travis there to pick a fight with a bunch of lowlifes heckling him. Eyewitnesses get a bit hazy after that.” He pointed back over at the guards hanging around the office.   
“They made a mess, some minor property damage and disturbing the peace. They’ll only keep them in overnight, mostly until they sober up, Vadim’s not making a fuss about it, apparently, he thinks this was a good thing for the kid. Fortunately, there’s no fine. This time.” Preston added glancing at the girls

Jack followed his gaze to Sam and the random woman who had their heads together giggling like school girls and Travis who was sat there in contemplative silence, like he had all the answers. Right.

“You know I’d have put good money on you being thrown into a lock up, way before Sam.” Preston muttered, looking over at the sozzled women and Jack frowned. Yeah. Him to. He kind wanted to know what the hell had happened that had her in the damn bar to begin with.

He left his 2IC in the drunk tank. Because frankly that was the easiest way to deal with this and he had no idea if he was cross with her or relieved this was the worst of it. After all he’d been expecting a blow up like this since that day in the vault when he’d watched her hurl the phone into bits against the wall. If that’s what this was then it had been some time coming.

He stood leaning against the security office wall, watching the people going about their business in the early morning, not many people about which suited him just fine as he took a drag on a cigar from his dwindling supply in mint condition out of Vault 111. Sam had told him he tasted like an ashtray when he smoked, but then he wasn’t expecting to be kissing her for another 12hours at least. If she was lucky.

“San Francisco Sunlight’s.” A voice declared, “Haven’t seen those in sometime. Rare commodity out here.” 

Jack looked up and took in the sight of Dick Tracy apparently. Or his robot twin at any rate. Jack stroked his stubbled chin. “That’s some skin problem you got there.” He pointed out as the robot-Dick tipped his hat at him.

“Synth.” He shrugged like that wasn’t a big deal. “And if you don’t mind me sayin, that’s some woman you got in there.” He pointed to the jail and Jack sighed. Ain’t that the truth he admitted quietly in his own head.

“And you’d know her how?” He probed for info without actually confirming anything, casual like.

The robot-Dick stepped forward and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trench coat, looking all kinds of cool, which had Jack slightly envious, particularly of the slick Fedora on his head. He’d always been a sucker for a hat. “Names Valentine, Detective Nick Valentine.”

“Oh great. A cop, I feel much safer already out here.” Jack quipped, taking another long drag on his cigar. But he was actually mildly interested, he’d seen the sign for this guys agency and hell it took some balls to walk around a City terrified of synths looking like that.   
“Still doesn’t answer my question.” He pointed out, finishing his cigar and tossing it onto the floor to stamp out as he eyed the Synth. His first – as far as he knew.

“It does, you just don’t know it. My assistant is the petite brunette in that cell next to your blonde pistol.”

“Ah.” Jack replied. “Seems they’ve gone off on a tangent without us.”

“Indeed it does.”

“You wanna enlighten me as to why your assistant was getting blind drunk with my… girl in a bar picking fights?” He stumbled slightly over the appropriate thing to call Sam, she deserved more than ‘girl’ but he was at a loss as to what to go with.

Valentine gave him a look. “Might have had something to do with the man she shot today. Saving my life.” Jack tensed. Ah, that might do it. Shit. Why the hell couldn’t they catch a break, he’d hoped in a place like this, big City they could avoid the casual violence on the outside given as there was some sort of law and order here at least… but it seemed even in here it found them. Or found Sam at any rate.

Valentine met his eyes, no small feat, not when he knew there was every chance they were reflecting his darker impulses right now, and he suspected that this Detective might be able to read that just fine.   
“I think I might have stirred up a hornets nest in her head.” He continued. “I wager that makes the current predicament something of my fault.”

“I’d say so.” Jack replied after a few silent moments stubbing his foot against the crushed cigar and enjoying the flavour of it still in his mouth. “So, thought these Synth’s were supposed to blend in or something? Be your neighbour. No offence but the only thing your blending with is a toaster.”

Valentine grinned and it pulled at his features, the gesture remarkably human.   
“True enough. Can’t really speak to my life but I woke up with this paint job. Half done I guess.” He cocked his head. “I get the impression the two of you have some sort of issue with Synths?”

There was the hiss of jet fuel and flames and Jack looked up to see Curie come flying into view behind Valentine and he narrowed his eyes at her.  
“Didn’t I tell you, to stick to her like glue?” he queried. “I’d ask if it said General, anywhere on my Uniform, except I don't even have a damn uniform anymore.” He fingered his pistol, imagining right now sticking his booted foot in that damn white floating-bots face.

“I can only apologise.” Curie replied contritely at least. “Colonel Carter, has proven most adept at all situations I have seen her in so far.” Her accent was really laying it on thick this time and Jack felt his expression turning darker as he glared at the damn hunk of metal, sensing some sort of attitude there.   
“I did not suspect that my absence for a few hours would lead to this” She half apologised he supposed, because he still thought he heard a recrimination about Sam in there somewhere.  
“Will you be gluing something explosive to me now?” She asked, sounding genuinely concerned and Jack grimaced. He’d like to, but he noticed the Detective take a step-in front of her. It was almost chivalrous, for robots. 

“I can see we all maybe got off on the wrong foot. Curie here has been filling me in a little on you and your group. I’d like to help if I can.” Valentine offered.

“I dunno, I’m kind of considering shooting you right now.” Jack replied tersely, his finger on his holster.

“How about instead of that, I buy you a drink see what I can do to dissuade you of that impulse. We sit down and discuss this Minutemen group of yours. And maybe you can explain to me what it is about Synth’s specifically that set the good Colonel off given as she rocked up with her own robot pal.” He indicated Curie. Yeah that was curious. Jack had a fairly good idea why now he’d seen the ‘Detective’ for himself.

“Must have been some conversation.” Jack replied dangerously.

Valentine nodded. “It was eventful I’ll admit, but I’m a Detective, reading people is sort of my specialty. Except I read her wrong, dead wrong. That doesn’t happen very often, I’m keen to know why.” He admitted. And there Carter went, being all interesting again apparently.

This Private Dick apparently had his own office space in town, complete with sofa and comfy living quarters that he’d invited them back to, to ‘discuss’ further. Jack settled onto the sofa and accepted the offered beer. Preston sat on the edge of the desk, looking like he really wanted to ask a lot more questions than Jack had about the setup here. But at least the conversation had moved on a little, apparently Valentine was more than used to getting a frosty reception from most people out here.

Jack shook his head. “Look I think it’s probably the skin job thing of yours.” He indicated the plastic degraded face in front of him. That wasn’t too much of a leap given her history, he can imagine she took one look at Valentine and freaked, seeing a machine, trying to be a man… the almost of it. It was Fifth all over again.

Valentine nodded. “Fortunately, my skins mostly off.” A joke an honest to God joke and Jack looked down at his feet for a moment to suppress his smirk at the self-depreciating tone he was getting from the guy. For Christ’s sake, why the hell did the one robot he decided to like have to be the one that had apparently driven Sam to drink.

“I take it you don’t share this aversion to Synth’s?” Valentine prodded.

“Usually I do.” Jack replied frowning, which was true, but it also meant he had no idea why he was trusting Valentine, except, the guy didn’t rub him the wrong way like most robots did. In fact the fact that he was thinking of him as ‘a guy’ hadn’t escaped him.   
“But you seem okay.” Jack replied finally. “You seem to genuinely want to help these people.” He looked him over again, “Plus that is a wicked duster.” He admitted admiring the tan jacket again. “I mean you really look the part. All that’s missing is some sort of machine gun and I’m getting a proper Dick Tracy vibe off you. Guys like my hero, all that Detective Noir stuff.” He admitted wondering if the guy knew how much of a walking cliché he was.

“Not sure I know that one.” Valentine frowned.

“Trust me.” Jack replied with a smirk, “It’s a good thing.”

Valentine looked suddenly uncomfortable, his mostly fleshy face giving away the expression just fine and Jack thought he really ought to work on his poker face, something that should have come easy to a robot.   
“Look I’ll square with you, I’m not entirely sure what I am either, I remember being an actual Detective back in the day. Based right here in Boston, then the bombs fell and, well I was waking up in this body.”

Jack blinked “Wait, hold up, are you telling me you’re a human being… trapped in a robot body?” Jack shook his head, “Cause honestly, I’ve totally done that.” He shook his head, “You didn’t run into an annoying guy named Harlan too did ya?”

“No, I don’t recall a Harlan.” he answered quite seriously and Jack ducked his head smirking slightly, he missed Daniel at times like this to quietly judge his subtle sarcasm and its impact. “But I’m not human either, it seems your Curie and I here have something in common, and Samantha had the measure of it. I’m a copy at best. But memories do not a man make. But it’s all I knew when I woke up, so I did what I remembered. I found a town, helped some folks here and there, started to get myself a name in these parts as something of a ‘finder of lost things’. Handy habit to have out here.” He replied proudly. “Then I found the previous Mayor’s daughter, after that I had a place here.”

Curie was fascinated with the tale… and this Synth, Jack suspected. She’d not stopped jabbering for the last few minutes, apparently, she was also culmination of memory patches and personality uploads too from famous scientists throughout history. It seemed to be their somewhat misguided method of introducing personality into their robots in this world. Jack knew enough to know that was just freaky, they didn’t code it, they damn well uploaded it. But then Jack always thought that when robots got involved, it was just damn unnatural. But the ‘human-ish’ vibe he was getting from Valentine particularly, probably went a long way to explaining Sam’s little freak out.

“Jack, you look like a man who’s just had an epiphany.” Valentine informed him sat on the sofa casual as you like, one knee bent, emulating a human’s casual interest keenly.

“Look don’t take it personally. It’s not that Sam hates robots, she just has a little issue with human-ish robots that want to be ‘real’ boys.” He debated how much to tell them and noted Preston giving him a look, which said it was ‘up to him’. He wondered why he was entertaining the notion at all, except, Valentine had been made somewhere. And he was the most advanced looking thing Jack had seen on this planet. And despite outward appearances, he very much was interested in getting home someday. Which meant that he wasn’t about to ignore the chance to gather good intel on a source of highly advanced tech. 

“Sam had a bit of a run in shall we say with a Synth that fancied itself a man.” Jack replied following on with the mental leap Sam seemed to have made in her head to these damn things and Fifth, clearly her unresolved was trying to resolve itself.   
“It took her prisoner, tortured her… damn near fell in love with her. And decided to make a slightly more durable backup of her, memories, looks you name it, it got it. But apparently it can walk like a duck, talk like a duck, even quack just like a duck… but in the end it’s still going to go completely insane, because it’s not actually a damn duck.” He frowned realising he’d gone off point somewhere if he was comparing Repli-carter to a duck.  
“Carter well she blames herself, that the things out there, completely wacko, wearing her face, with a real bad attitude.” Jack sighed and downed his beer he was paraphrasing and oversimplifying of course, but Preston nodded, so he had to figure he hadn’t gone too far off Sam’s initial telling of it.

Valentine shifted uncomfortably at that information and Jack watched him. That wasn’t a robotic movement, that was the uncomfortable movement of a man feeling a little guilty and a little like he had no clue what to say next. Huh.

“What happened to the Synth that did this to her?” Valentine asked looking him dead in the eye.

Jack swallowed. “Bastards dead, the robot-her killed him.” 

“My goodness, how ‘orrible’. I am surprised that after such a thing, she would tolerate any machine, but I have never felt as though she harboured me ill will.” Curie informed them both. “She never threatened to glue an explosive to me.” She warned him and he smirked. God save him from the end of the damn world and smart mouthed robots.

Valentine let out a puff of air, sounding pissed. “Alright. Maybe I read the situation really wrong.” Valentine admitted. He glanced at Curie as if considering what she’d said and maybe ‘what’ she was.   
“I thought when I heard her surname ‘Carter’ that maybe she was related to Mr Carter.” Jack looked blankly at him. “Right frozen in vault for 200 years… some folks have all the luck.” Valentine muttered shaking his head.   
“It was before my time, but they called it ‘the Broken Mask incident’, apparently some years ago an early prototype infiltration synth right here in Diamond City who went by the name Mr Carter was enjoying a drink when he went all twitchy… stood up and just started executing folk. Apparently to hear it told, he didn’t so much as blink during it just had this weird creepy smile fixed on his lips, didn’t respond to anything, not even when the guards filled him full of holes. Obviously when they got a look at the body realised he wasn’t quite a real boy, head full of wires and plastic. That was the start of this City’s fears of synth’s – justifiably I suppose. Sixty years later we’re still feeling it.”

“Cheery story for the kids that one.” Jack sighed, with a grimace. Figures ‘Carter’ would have a name linked to the worst damn synth attack in Boston. Probably explained why Marcie had been so dead set on her being a synth. Damn it. One day they’d actually catch a break out here, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Maybe he should ask to her to stop giving her surname out willy-nilly around here… or possibly use his. The thought was momentarily arresting, he smirked Samantha O’Neill. With two ‘L’s. Yeah he wasn’t sure she’d go for that, he’d already got them pretending to be husband and wife and Carter had never struck him as a take a man’s name kind of girl – she’d wanted to be the second General Carter in the family. He wondered if Shanahan had known about the chances of her linking their monikers after they got hitched. He shook his head - task at hand, getting distracted by thoughts of Pete of all people wasn’t helpful. 

“Look.” Valentine continued drawing his attention back, “I find people for a living, or I find answers at any rate. You think she’s got unresolved with a robot that looks like a man, then odds are it’s a Synth, which means the Institute.” His eyes flickered to Jack for a moment considering.  
“Those cigars of yours, I told you they were rare. Where did you get them?” Valentine asked suddenly, sounding like he was slotting into business mode.

“Vault back West.” Jack replied suitably cagey, he didn’t give Sanctuary’s information up to just anyone.

The guy nodded. The robot Jack corrected himself… then decided to hell with it. This Private Dick felt like more of a guy than anyone else he’d met so far out here; his brain could rebel on him on this.

“Don’t suppose the name Kellogg means anything to you?” Valentine posed.

Jack blinked, actually it did. “Nasty fella, has a habit of murdering and kidnapping, yeah he paid a visit to the Vault.” He replied, narrowing his eyes and wondering at the connection to this Institute. Which if that’s where the synth’s got made, then that was going to be the best place for Sam to get her hands on some futuristic tech that might help them. Of course… she’d now have to pretend that she was out for revenge, or chasing down her Synth-doppelganger on top of that. Although if it came down to blowing up a bunch of Synth’s with skin jobs he wasn’t certain she’d have a problem with that at this point. Hell, maybe it would even be cathartic for her. A bit like transference from the Replicators.

“I can’t speak to that,” Valentine replied, “But I can tell you he’s bad news. He stayed a while in Diamond City, been in and out over the years, word has it that he’s some big-time enforcer and that he may just be the Institute’s ‘problem solver’ out here. I was investigating him for some of the local disappearances. Still am in fact. He came through few weeks back with a young boy in tow, maybe ten years old.”

Jack frowned. Wondering if it was the same kid he’d stolen from the Vault. “That doesn’t seem right, timing wise, he should be much older than that.” 25 years older than that according to Sam… unless of course Sam was wrong, which was a whole other rabbit hole that very rarely happened.

The Detective frowned at Jack. “You know the kid?”

Jack shook his head. “Just a notion, but no, can’t be, wrong age.”

“This the kidnapping you mentioned?” Valentine pressed not giving it up and Jack looked up. He made a split-second decision.

“Yeah. My boy, Shaun, he was kidnapped from the Vault we were frozen in. That bastard left us for dead.” He fibbed, and it damn well hurt to say the words ‘my boy’, and his grimace, along with the pain he knew shadowed his face was real enough to be convincing.

Valentine nodded and came forward placing a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, I don’t know myself, but I’ve seen enough people now out here who’ve had a child stolen to know it is the worst kind of torment for parents.” He sympathised and Jack ground his molars together.

Oh… well in for a penny in for a pound. He was already going to hell, why not appropriate someone else’s identity and elicit false sympathy for the loss of a child that wasn’t his, hell that wasn’t even a stretch, he had lost a child in a much more permanent way and the pain of that was still ugly and raw. He let it bleed into his expression, lowered the walls for just a minute. He didn’t like playing people, but he wasn’t above it he’d done it for covert enough times, and if it got them closer to this Institute, then needs must. Although he might have to come clean with Preston – although he supposed he had told the man he’d lost a son, he’d just never mentioned how or when. Gears started to click. The only person who would know their story was appropriated would be Codsy, and no one was heading back Sanctuary way for a while. Plus if it came to it, he was confident Sam could futz with that particular set of memories.

“Parent, Shaun was my kid.” He replied coolly, deciding not to drag Sam into this, it sounded like she had enough unresolved in her head without adding his shit – make believe or not onto it.   
“Sam and I together is a fairly recent thing, but we’ve just been through her own reasons to be real eager to speak to this Kellogg guy.” He stroked his gun letting Valentine have the full meaning of that ‘talk’.

Valentine nodded, seemingly convinced and better yet, apparently eager to help for whatever perceived slight it was that he felt had happened between he and Sam. Which he intended to find out, just as soon as she’d sobered up. Which if he was honest, wasn’t a sentence he ever expected to hear himself say… although yeah, there was that one time on that planet in the village, when she drank that stuff that made her take off all her clothes…

“Then you should start with his apartment.” Valentine told him thoroughly jolting him out of one his all-time favourite memory of fertility festivals and wine.   
“It’s been vacant since he was last here. Up in the bleachers.” Valentine pointed in a direction beyond the walls of his office which Jack knew from his recon of the City held a small scaffolded section up there, where there had been a few cabins built up. The Mayor had told him that was where anyone who was ‘anyone’ had stayed in Diamond City as a suggestion for trade partners… or capital investment in their little Commonwealth supply-chain. He’d set Preston to that task, the man was a bit like a bible salesman… persistent and earnest, made you feel all kinds of wrong to shut the door in his face so you just let him go on, giving you the pitch until you realised you’d somehow handed him your wallet to ease the guilt a little. Or at least that’s how they made him feel. Preston was like that. So damn earnest. It was refreshing, Jack only hoped the rest of the Minutemen would be like him when they finally reached this damn Castle of theirs.

“You don’t say.” He hummed, considering adding a little breaking and entry to his recent resume.

\---*---

Sam’s head pounded and her blood-shot eyes were bleary as she tried her best to ignore the look Jack was giving her as she stumbled out of the ‘drunk tank’ and gratefully accepted the can of purified water he handed her. She popped it open and downed it quickly, grateful to get rid of the furriness on her tongue. Glancing back at Jack he was staring at her his expression masked but he was holding out a pair of shades open to her, she sighed and he slid them onto her face, dropping them over the bridge of her nose, his fingers brushing her cheek and pushing her hair behind her ear as he settled them. She looked away from the tenderness she saw there for a moment, not feeling like she deserved his sympathy, and his fingers dropped away from her face. They stood there, in silence for a moment.

Without a word and not looking back to see if he followed, she put distance between her and the security office, not wanting to be back in a cage like that again, although she considered she’d been in worse cells – which was a sad indictment of her life. The night before something of a blur. Her tolerance for alcohol and chemicals in general was higher than the average humans, which was probably why she’d ended up downing more than her fair share of that bottle, she remembered foolishly doing that at least, enough drink she imagined to have put a normal human in a hospital bed. Glancing back, she realised Jack had the offending bottle in his hand, she turned to catch him giving it a tentative sniff and recoiling with a look of almost impressed horror. She stumbled slightly out into the dappled twilight of Diamond City, she’d lost the better part of a day behind bars and sat down heavily on a park bench that had been artfully arranged to overlook the farm they had growing round the back of the stadium.

Jack’s hands went down on her shoulders and she bowed her head slightly, as he rounded the seat and squatted down in front of her. This ‘thing’ between them was still relatively knew, and he’d been her CO for so much longer, which was making her a little concerned about the rebuke she was about to get. Him balling her out with her head this sore wasn’t high on her list of fun times. 

But he didn’t yell, just reached up and brushed her lip, making her wince as she touched her finger to it as well, she recalled an elbow slamming into that.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly and Sam felt worse. She had been an idiot, and he had every right to get mad.

“I’m fine. Just a sore head and a few sore spots.” She replied, “I’ll heal.” And he glanced down at her hand brushing his thumb over the bloodied knuckles tenderly. Sam realised he’d obviously stood there and in that meticulous way of his, catalogued all of her injuries, probably the night before when he’d come by to see her (technically early morning).

“You want to talk about it?” He asked, and drew up a seat next to her, not releasing her sore hand as he stroked it softly. This tender side of Jack was one she’d only glimpsed once or twice before in their old lives, and very rarely directed her way given their need to maintain their working relationship. But she was finding it a welcome surprise, that he could be as gentle as he was lethal. At least with her.

“It was a monumentally bad decision.” She replied to his question, “I was just feeling a little overwhelmed and had too much to drink.” It was the truth, or at least the top layer of it, but she didn’t especially want or even know how to get into the rest right now.

Jack nodded, “Fair enough.” He sighed and she frowned, he was waiting. Although for what she wasn’t sure.

“Robot-Synth guy came by, the Dick Tracy fan. Seem’s you two hit it off.” He offered with a wry grin and she slumped slightly. He’d met Valentine and was tactfully giving her an ‘out’ to fess up about what a shitty day out in the City she’d had yesterday.

“I was going to tell you.” She replied and she was, when they were far away from Diamond City, or drunk.

“Hmmm.” He sounded out, non-committedly.

“I just… had a bad one.” She replied quietly. Which was an understatement. She hadn’t realised it at the time, only when she’d downed about half a bottle and drunkenly confessed to her new dance partner…Ellie was it, that Valentine had scared the crap out of her. Not because of who he was, but what he was. What he represented.  
“I might not be as over the whole, Fifth thing, as I’d hoped.” She confided.

“Yeah, I got that impression.” Jack replied sliding his hand into hers and locking their fingers together, as he did that thing he did where he said very little, but what he said seemed to draw out more words from you.

“That and I killed someone… and it didn’t bother me. I barely registered the body, the death.” She admitted as she looked up at him, hoping perhaps to see understanding. “It’s so screwed up Jack, that I decided to drink not to blot out what I’d done, but because I was upset because I knew I should have felt something about it.”

Jack sighed and bowed his head, bringing her damaged knuckles up to his lips. “I told you Sam long time ago that this day would come, when your conscience wouldn’t trouble you so much.” He sighed, “Hail Dorothy… remember.” He replied and she winced remembering it alright. She’d thought he was being an unbelievable asshole for that comment at the time, the idea that she’d been able to kill another living being by just ‘willing it so’ had horrified her, worse than putting a bullet in someone. And he’d made a joke of it. But now, God damn it, now she got it. 

“I didn’t want you to get here Sam, didn’t want you to be like me, but out here, it was sort of inevitable.” He finally looked up at her.   
“It doesn’t make you a bad person.” He admitted. “It just means you’ve adapted to survive, that your strong. Your protecting yourself the only way you can.”

“By becoming cold, indifferent.” She bit out. “Killing shouldn’t be easy Jack.”

He nodded. “Hey no argument here.” He replied. “But it is.” He shrugged. “By training or experience, it is now. And I’m sorry but I’d rather you were alive than him, so I can’t really bring myself to be choked up about it. From what Valentine told me, the Doc was off his rocker, a serial killer in fact.” He squeezed her hand. “You did a public service. Even Detective Dick admitted he was more annoyed at the chance lost to question the man than his actual death.”

Sam nodded. “He freaks me out.” She admitted hating that she sounded so pathetic. She was a scientist, an engineer, she’d seen more than her fair share of robots in her day.

“And I kind of like him.” Jack admitted, “So lets call it a weird day. Huh.”

Sam nodded. “Weird. Yeah.”

“Look I’ve got some things to catch you up on and a bachelor pad for our old pal Kellogg to show you.” He slapped his thigh, jolting her with the suddenness of the movement as he sprung to his feet. “So how about we go take a minute, catch up, I’ll show you what I’ve found whilst you’ve been dying out.”

There was a definite ‘something’ in those words, she wasn’t sure if it was so much rebuke as it was teasing. But it left her feeling a bit more irritated, which she suspected might have been his intention. He wanted her out of her funk. Mad at him was an easy way to do it.

“Fine. But stop playing me.” She muttered leaning in and kissing him lightly on the mouth, drawing back with a smile. “I don’t want to be mad at you right now.”

He raised a questioning, innocent eyebrow. “Oh? I wouldn’t even know the notes to play you with Samantha.” Oh god, his voice curved around her name and she felt a blush, damn him, how did he do that? She looked up and his mouth crashed against hers, before softening into something gentler as he took a moment just to hold her and she gave herself over to the sensation. Maybe she should have drowned herself in Jack rather than drink. It seemed like a far healthier option.

He pulled back, cradling the back of her head. Perhaps he could read her expression, or maybe he just knew her that well. “Next time you come to me. I’ll make you feel or forget. Alright?” He all but rasped against her lips and her insides liquified, just when she thought she couldn’t possibly love this man more, that she couldn’t find more things to admire, he’d do something like this.

“God I love you.” She pressed her lips to his again, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself as close as she could. She didn’t even mind the fact that he’d clearly been smoking. He only ever did that when he was stressed about her, so it was her own damn fault. Besides she imagined she tasted like a damn distillery.

“Good.” He barked, pressing a final kiss to her lips, clearly not bothered by the tase and just held her. Enveloping her in his arms and making her feel safe for a moment as he buried his face in her neck.  
“Come on. I think I might have found us a lead on this Institute place where all the Synth’s are coming from. I reckon they might be worth looking into for the tech. Like you said, they seem to be the most advanced thing left out here, and based on their shady actions so far, I’m betting they got a butt load of something useful they’re hiding somewhere.”

“Oh…” he trailed off looking faintly guilty, and a little nervous. “Also, I might have declared to Valentine that Shaun was my kid.” Her eyes widened in surprise before softening into sympathy as she stroked his hand. “So, I’m kind of on a hunt for his kidnappers right now and he’s in on the whole you’ve got an evil-Synth doppleganger that’s on the prowl.”

Sam leant back and looked him in his big brown eyes. “Wow, you have been busy.”

\---*---

Nick Valentine met them up on the bleachers, he tipped his hat at them both and pushed off he wall he’d been leaning against. Apparently, this guy had been programmed for ‘understated cool’ because he was emulating it perfectly Jack noted.

“All dried out?” Nick quipped at Sam and she glared at him. “Ah don’t give me that look, I’m surprised your alive after drinking that much moonshine, let alone up for a little sleuthing.” He chuckled and Sam rolled her eyes but didn’t otherwise comment. Jack got the impression these two were never going to be bosom buddies.

“Shall we get on with it.” She muttered and Jack turned to signal Preston who sent a hand gesture back from the other end of the bleachers signalling an all clear. Darkness was there friend and it seemed that Kellogg was a fan too, his house was in a nice dark little corner. All the better for dragging kidnapped people into Jack imagined. He attempted to pick the lock and snapped one of his few precious bobby pins up to the task and glared at it.

“Why don’t you let me give that a try.” Nick slid in and Jack stepped back.

“Be my guest, apparently I’m not as much of a cat burglar as I like to think I am.” He sighed, watching Nick work.

“Well it’s one heck of a lock. Something to hide eh Kellogg?” Nick taunted the absent owner. The lock clicked and Nick stood giving them both a head cock as they all slipped inside.

“So, cosy little hovel.” Jack muttered looking around the rusting metal box, that seemed to have papers strewn everywhere, clearly the guy had left in a hurry.

“If he left in a hurry, then it’s possible Kellogg he left something behind.” Nick declared and Jack was inclined to agree, from Nick’s intel it sounded like Kellogg might have got into it with some guys, there had been shots fired at any rate. Possibly he’d fled wounded not just in a hurry.

“Hey you’re the GumShoe, we just point guns at people for a living.” Jack conceded to the guys expertise and Nick merely snorted at the old term. Sam cleared her throat and Jack glanced at her. “And she also builds them…” he conceded, she rolled her eyes, clearly that wasn’t an improvement, but this wasn’t exactly the time or place to explain their old life or how she was once literally the smartest person on the planet – probably still was.

They looked through the various cupboards and the desk, it didn’t take long.   
“I thought this guy was some big-time enforcer. Seems a little small doesn’t it.” Jcak queried, “I thought he’d have a fancy place somewhere from all that kidnap money?” Jack added looking around, it was barely one room with a sofa and a desk with an upstairs that consisted of a bed. Unless this ‘was’ the fancy place by Wasteland standards… God that was a depressing thought.

“Maybe this is just a safehouse.” Sam replied. “Or a retirement home, I imagine he’s got to be slowing down, he’s got to be in his 80s now.”

Jack and Valentine both gave her a look. “How’d you figure that?” Jack queried.

Sam paused then glanced up at them both. “Oh, right I forgot to mention, Vault 111’s computers were offline for a while, the reboot I did on them had a time-gap, it hadn’t synced up. So when I said it was 25 years ago that Shaun was taken, it was actually more like 50 years.” She paused, as if considering their cover and her callous delivery of the fact that ‘his son’ had just aged another 25 years and gave him a pained look to cover it at best.

Jack’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “50!” He replied, “And we’re only mentioning this now?” He glanced at Nick, he had after all told the guy this was about ‘his’ son, he probably ought to get worked up about a time gap like that even if Sam wasn’t, but then he figured she was probably still too hung over to emote correctly right now. She had after all kept the sunglasses on inside this dingy dark room. 

Sam rubbed what he suspected was her aching head at his query, ignoring his sharp tone.   
“Sorry, it only updated my PipBoy when I plugged into Vault 81.” She replied giving him a pointed look that lost nothing despite the fact that he couldn’t see her eyes.   
“I hadn’t realised until after and then we got sort of distracted on the way here, what with the trying not to die.” She admitted with more than a touch of a tone and he frowned, Sam forgetting to mention a key bit of intel would have been a big warning flag had she not already just gone an attempted to drown herself in a bottle.

“Look, whatever the clock says… Kellogg was here, with a boy about 10 years old.”

“And he was still looking pretty spry himself.” Valentine added, he didn’t so much as frown but Jack sensed the ‘frown’ on his plastic features. 

“Perhaps Kellogg isn’t as human as we assumed.”

“You think he’s a synth?” Jack questioned.

“It would explain his lack of aging. Or perhaps he got himself downloaded into a ‘better’ body.”

Sam stiffened. Jack rolled his eyes. Bloody robots. “Great, him and everyone else then. Damn maybe Piper’s rag is right, ‘your neighbour probably is a synth’. I take it back paranoia out here is absolutely justified.”

Valentine gave him a look. “Hey don’t paint us all with the same brush. I may be a synth but I’m not out to harm anyone.” He glanced at Sam, “Your experiences with my kind not withstanding, not every synth is an enemy.”

“That’d be nice.” Jack muttered, “You know just for a change.”

“I won’t hold my breath.” Sam retorted.

Valentine shook his head. “Look, if you’re really intent on finding this Institute, if you think it’s got your boy, then I reckon you should look into following The Freedom Trail… there’s some folks at the end of it that might just have some answers. Or at least a different perspective. You reach it, tell that asshole Deacon that Nick’s vouching for you.”

“Well that’s needlessly cryptic.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Freedom Trail… any hints as to where this mythical yellow brick road starts?”

“I thought you were old timers…?” he looked between them as he rifled through Kellogg’s desk and tutted as Sam frankly ignored him turning her back on him and Jack tried not to feel affronted by that.  
“Tell you what, since I have no love for the Institute that filled my head full of crap and threw me out like trash…” He said pointedly and Sam stiffened but remained otherwise unmoved by Nick’s apparent suffering “I’ll let you have this one for free. Go take a stroll to the station at Boston Common and think on the history of the place.” Well that was better Jack considered, although a wild goose chase wasn’t high on his to-do-list out here.

Valentine hit a hidden pressure switch as he was examining Kellogg’s desk with a sudden exaltation and the wall behind it slid aside revealing a hidden room.

“Nice.” Jack exclaimed as Sam swept into the newly revealed room, gun up, always prepared after all. He and Nick followed, Sam already had her head in a trunk big enough to hold her and she pulled out a rolled set of papers holding them aloft with a grin.

“Watcha got?” He sidled up to her as she headed back to the desk and spread the papers out over it and he slipped his hands around her waist, slotting in behind her to look. She glanced back at him and he stared back, his hands tightening slightly, he’d let her go if it bothered her, but he’d rather not. He still hadn’t quite gotten over the fear he’d felt when she’d vanished yesterday night, he wanted to hold her, feel her chest rising and falling against his.

She turned back and slid her hand over his, keeping him there. “Blueprints.” She examined the drawings and glanced at Nick.

“Look familiar to you?” She pressed and Nick leaned in. 

“Not offhand. But I can do some digging, match it up to the public records, might take a while given as most of that place was on fire – but the computer records will be fine.” He added, with a touch more optimism.

“You think this is where he ran off to?” Jack pressed Sam, looking at the blueprints and frowning, looked like some serious structure. He examined the levels, the layout. He’d been on a lot of bases in his time. “Looks military.” He commented.

“Maybe.” Sam replied. She held out her PibBoy and scanned it into the device, then rolled up the blueprints and handed them over to Nick.

“So you’ll help us?” She queried. “We can pay you.” She added for good measure as he took the paperwork from her and she reached into her pocket and dumped a bunch of pre-war money onto the desk. “That cover your fee?” She asked with just a touch of bite to it that made Jack wince and note to himself that Sam with a hangover was no fun at all and he tightened his grip around her waist fractionally in warning to ‘play nicely’.

Valentine glanced down at it, then back at them both. “Yeah that ought to do it. Come back and see me in a month or so, I’ll see what I can do.” He turned pocketing the blueprints inside his coat and looking to leave. “You folks got a place to stay?” 

Jack glanced up from where he’d dropped his chin onto Sam’s shoulder and looked around the place with a grin, today was looking up it seemed. “Oh, I was thinking given as Kellogg was a murdering kidnapping bastard and we all know the fine tradition of ‘finders Keepers’ is alive and well these days, that we’d be stealing his digs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I snuck a few side quests in here and references particularly ‘Confidence Man’ with Travis. Points for anyone who spots anymore in this and any chapter :)  
> Also, regarding Kellogg – the timing issue on the play through is very confused and misleading throughout so I feel justified in saying that I actually made a mistake in the earlier ‘Vault chapter’ and wrote 25 years instead of 60 years having passed since Shaun was kidnapped. But I’ve gone with it here rather than edit fix, as it played into my narrative (just for any fallout fans that it had irked). Of note for non-Fallout fans: I did not make up Mr Carter – that is a genuine lovely bit of fallout 4 lore around Synths that fits in with my narrative.  
> FYI I don't have a beta so any mistakes in any of this are mine - feel free to PM me any significant issues and I may edit fix them.


	15. Taking Independence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I couldn't help it - brought this one out a little sooner to see what you guys made of it. Comments feed my muse so feel free to let me know what you like/don't like or if there was anything that wasn't clear because you don't know the game - I want this to be completely accessible to Stargate Fans with literally no knowledge of the Fallout Universe. 
> 
> I also increased the Chapter numbers - I couldn't help myself just had to fit in a few more adventures before the end of Part 1. 
> 
> I'm also in need of a beta I think if anyone knows anyone or can point me in a direction.

They stayed in Diamond City a few more days, after all they had a secure room, Preston had apparently met up with an old friend who ran the local school here and had taken the opportunity to tell them, with no small amount of glee, that they had the room to themselves as he’d sauntered out. Jack didn’t ask, and Preston didn’t tell, but he had the swagger of a man about to get laid… good for him.

“You heard the man.” He glanced back at Sam who had her feet propped up on the coffee table lounging on the sofa with an undamaged copy of ‘Tesla’ the local science magazine she’d traded a fine bottle of Vodka for, he wasn’t sure he’d forgiven her for that just yet. Trust Carter to get stranded off world and still be doing homework… of course she’d called it ‘fun’. Much like she’d used to say that being cooped up in her lab with her latest doohikey had been ‘relaxing’. He had better ideas of how to relax her these days.

“We’ve got this place all to ourselves.” He grinned and she glanced over the top of her fancy magazine in time to catch his eyebrow waggle, his patented ‘come hither’ look.

“I’m reading.” She replied flatly, but her lips quirked up as she hastily hid back behind the cover, which was apparently Issue #5 and was all about ‘Giant Super Weapons’. Yeah, because Sam needed a lesson in how to build giant honking guns, like he needed to know how to open a beer.

He plopped down onto the sofa next to her and picked up said beer and a copy of one of the ‘Grognak the Barbarian’ comics she’d apparently had for free thrown in with her selection of Tesla’s. He’d have been more peeved that she apparently thought he’d be interested in a kids comic… except it was pretty cool. It entertained him for about ten fidgety minutes maybe, by which point he got distracted by a pair of perfectly bare, perfectly cold feet wiggling into his lap. He glanced at her. She was wearing a little pale blue summer dress with cute little roses on it, that fell just below the knee, flared out in an old 50s style with fiddly little blouse buttons and bare legs. Freshly shaved if he wasn’t mistaken – which out here took some doing, she’d mentioned something about modifying a laser at which point he’d promptly decided to stick to the sharpened blade on his face. But it was practically a neon sign right now to a horn-dog like him, that she wasn’t as ‘invested’ in her little magazine as she claimed.

He slid his palm along the skin offered him for a moment, his eyes on her face which gave nothing away as he ran the calloused fingertips under her knee and there was a faint inhale from her that made his lips quirk up.  
“I’m not sure this is the type of place to wander around bare foot.” He commented casually as he ran his index finger up the sole of her foot making her hiss and withdraw it a fraction – ticklish, noted. She shot him a half peeved half pleading look. He knew that look when it came from a women whose bare feet were encroaching on his personal space, he just hadn’t expected to see it on Sam. He was being dangled a tasty morsel, in the hopes he’d pony up first.

“I’m not wandering, I’m sat on the sofa. Enjoying some relaxation time, isn’t that what you’re always nagging at me to do?” She pointed out coyly. He supposed she had a point.

Jack quirked an eyebrow and sighed, her toes wiggled. She had cute toes he conceded as he wrapped what he knew were warm hands around them. “And how is this my relaxation time if it’s spent giving you a foot rub?” He teased, keeping a firm hold of those feet.

She smirked and bit her lip. “I recall not so long ago that you’d have been thrilled to touch any part of me, especially when it was in your lap.” Oh yeah, this sexy sassy version of the Sam Carter he’d gotten to know so well these last few years was really doing it for him and he’d already been in fairly deep.

“True.” He replied and slid his thumb firmly along the arch of her foot making her gasp and try and recoil only to find her legs pinned. He gave her a shit eating grin. He hadn’t had the chance to be this ‘domestic’ with her before and she was right, he considered, the very fact that she’d put her lovely feet in his lap really was cause for celebration.  
“Lucky for you, I give great foot rubs.” He found the spot between the ball of her feet and she actually dropped the magazine down onto her chest, her head falling back slightly as a moan he normally only heard when he was touching other parts of her fell from her lips.

“Oh my god.” She hummed. “When in hell did you learn to do this?” She groaned again as he set his skilled fingers to the task of finding every aching muscle and pressure point and making her writhe and moan. It was a positively sinful display and he slid a hand up her calf holding her in place as he realised the men she’d been with before clearly hadn’t been taking good enough care of her if this was a surprise to her. He didn’t answer her question though, wisely deciding that telling her how he’d used to use it as foreplay with his ex-wife would probably ruin the mood.

It didn’t take long for her reaction to his touch to grow more heated, as relaxed as her muscles in her feet were getting, he could practically feel the thrum of tension growing elsewhere as her hips rocked lightly with every heavy touch to her arches. He grinned, watching her and for a moment he could forget about everything outside these four grimy walls, and just imagine they were back home on their Earth. In her house… or maybe his, better yet the cabin he’d yet to convince her to come to; where they could sit having a lazy Sunday afternoon, they’d order take-out and watch the Simpsons curled around one another. God what he’d give to just be able to take her home, to have her safe, happy… healthy damn it. Gate travel never had been especially safe, but even it had been less full-on than this, living one crisis or life-threatening ambush to the next. They’d gone whole months back on their world without him needing to do some daring-do to pull their asses out the fire. 

Although right now he considered this wasn’t so bad… getting to know her in a more relaxed setting, God he hoped that if they did live through all of this that their relationship would survive the banality of normal life. He wasn’t one to dwell though, much happier to live in the moment, and the moment right now had Samantha Carter, her feet in his lap rhythmically rocking her hips in response to his touch, a touch that grew bolder with every little groan she made. His hands trailed to her calves and curled under the back of her knees and he dragged her closer.

“What are you doing?” She hummed, rubbing her foot across his thigh, brushing the impressive erection he was already sporting from just the sounds she’d been making. Her eyes opened and she bit her lip staring at him as she deliberately put pressure on his groin with her toes. ‘What are you doing?’ She’d asked, damn tease.

“I’m realising that we’ve never had sex on a couch before.” He replied, inhaling sharply as she ran her foot quite deliberately over him again.

Sam smirked. “There’s a lot of places we’ve never had sex Jack… probably never will.” And wasn’t that the truth, he’d had a fairly healthy fantasy life which had used to sustain him, even if he’d felt mostly guilty about it after, but more than one fantasy had involved her and that damn lab bench hers. Or the briefing table… his desk... storeroom… out deck on his cabin, very rarely the bed he realised with a smirk. He knelt up, shifting her legs enough apart that he could place a knee between her bare thighs and hover over her as she lay looking up at him curiously, her eyes already a little hooded and damn if that wasn’t the best look, to know that he’d put it there.

“I want to have couch sex with you.” He confessed. 

Sam quirked an eyebrow and slid her leg up along his thigh, rounding his ass and nudging him closer. “This filthy old couch… right here?” She rolled her eyes, but she was still looking at him like she wanted to rip his clothes off, which was a good sign. 

“Well I’d say we’d be hard pressed to make it much dirtier.” He chuckled, ignoring the fact that he was suddenly hyper aware of the grime probably built up in this thing and felt the mad urge to get her bare legs off it.  
“I’m up for trying though if you are.” He pointed out and she grinned a wicked little thing as she let her magazine fell from her fingers onto the floor forgotten. Then she reached up to drag the back of his head down to capture him in a kiss, her tongue parting his lips with ease and proceeding to fuck him thoroughly there. She pulled back and he blinked a little dazed, she was far too good at making him lose his train of thought.

Sam’s hand slid to his chest. “I’ll confess too then, do you remember when I came to your house last year, when you had a head full of Ancient crap… again. We sat on your couch together and I wanted to confess how I felt, but you wouldn’t let me.” She stared up at him almost accusingly and he winced, oh he remembered. “I wanted to do something just…” she kissed his lips, “like,” another kiss, “this.” She grinned around his mouth and her hand wandered down between his legs and cupped him so firmly he couldn’t help the groan that fell out of him into her mouth. He just about recalled every moment of that painfully awkward day, but his brain cells were struggling to think much with Sam’s hips bucking up against him, her palm rubbing him firmly through his hard won cargo pants.

“I told you, you were a National Treasure.” He replied finally trying to address the accusation he’d heard that somehow he’d cockblocked them then. An answer which he’d felt at the time had been a pretty darn fine declaration of his unending adoration of her. His hand slid up her long leg and he couldn’t help but enjoy for a moment the way she wrapped it around him, before leaning in to press a kiss to her mouth and rest his weight into her, pinning her to this couch as he finally gave in and sunk against the delicious heat that was her body.  
“Wasn’t exactly a rejection.” He admitted quietly. It had just been all he could offer right then and there, he thought deep down she knew that, they’d agreed after all to keep it in the room – deathbed of not.

“Smooth talker.” She groaned lightly, arching up into him and he shuddered at the feel of her heat against his restrained crotch. God this woman was too good for him, she’d wanted him then, he’d known it and he hadn’t let her incriminate herself… not for him, especially not a soon to be dead him. He’d been unbearably selfish really knowing she’d regret not telling him what he was sure she’d been about to say, but he couldn’t have taken the pain the regret of dying and knowing for sure that he could have been with her, however briefly.

But she was his to hold now, and he slid his hands down her sides, rounding her ass and holding her against him. Of course, in his fantasies he hadn’t quite expected, or hoped for so much. Back then his couch fantasy, as she’d sat there looking all cute in her skirt and pixy hair with shining eyes, had been far more PG. Maybe some over the clothes touching, a kiss with a little tongue if he’d been real lucky… God he’d been a sap, but it had been enough to keep him going. Her fingers threaded through the back of his hair and she guided his mouth back to hers and demonstrated exactly what he’d missed out on that day, with more than a little tongue. He suspected had he let her kiss him like they’d clearly both wanted back then, his poor overloaded brain probably would have melted there and then, he’d never have made it to the damn ZPM or the cryotube and Anubis would have destroyed Earth. He supposed that was one hell of a reason not to kiss the incredible woman who’d turned up on his doorstep. 

“God how did I ever resist you.” He groaned and let his mouth trace a trail down her jaw to her neck, feeling her arch into him, her breath in his ear, surrounding him with the smell and taste of her. The smell of her had used to tantalise him, when she brushed too close to him on base just the hint of vanilla, or they’d share a tent the scent of her shampoo lingering on her sleeping bag as he’d stowed it away; it used to be enough to just get him by some days. But it wasn’t all about the sex now, he’d never suspected it would be between them… not that the sex wasn’t great and a definite plus in their relationship. But there was a new dimension to it now, it was just being able to share all that he was with her, secrets and dreams, good and bad. To do and know things that as her CO he hadn’t used to be allowed to know or care about.

Like knowing what if felt like to wake up with a mouthful of her hair and her leg thrown across his hip. Like being able to show that he damn well cared about her when she ran off and got a split lip and thrown in the drunk tank, to make it clear that her recklessness pissed him the hell off. To know that inexplicably she liked bare feet and would have killed for some nail polish on her toes – a product that apparently never existed on this world. That she liked rum more than whiskey and flavoured vodka’s better than both. She liked her meat well done – which frankly was a crime. She was tone deaf, like really quite astonishingly bad at carrying a tune, but it didn’t stop her from trying when she thought she was alone. She wasn’t much of a breakfast person but she’d bite your hand off if you touched her lunch, a fact that had apparently escaped him this last eight years, probably because no one got excited about a lunch of MREs. Not that she’d admit it, but she was a blanket hog. She secretly liked public displays of affection and floaty skirts (that last one he’d already noted quietly to himself in 1969). There was her damned odd phobia about worms, an animal with literally no teeth – which might explain her aversion to fishing – and Goa’uld. She was also apparently ticklish on the soles of her feet, that last was a recent addition to his little ‘Sam-bank’. 

He was done-for he realised, utterly. He’d never hoped he’d find someone like her, that she’d be foolish enough to love him… he didn’t deserve it, not after what he’d let happen to his son. He deserved to wallow in misery, unloved and broken for the rest of his damn days. And even then it wouldn’t be penance enough. Perhaps that was why the fear refused to leave him, lurking somewhere behind every happy moment with her, like a damn shadow, because if karma came for him then it would take Sam without hesitation and then he’d be right back there a broken wreck of a man, in a broken wreck of a world.

“You okay?” She asked gently as he stilled over her, just holding her there, trying to will the thoughts away and be as shallow as he sometimes pretended. He closed his eyes for a moment and laid his head on her chest, listening to the sound of her heart thumping steadily there. Making a mockery of his fears. Her hand went to the back of his head and played with the short hairs on the back of his neck, making him shiver at the sensation as she trailed up and down his neck with her nails.  
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this… but stop thinking.” She chastised him lightly.

“Isn’t that usually my line.” He sighed and lifted his finger to trace the swell of her breast dropping a kiss there. 

Sam placed a finger under his chin and guided his face up to look at her. “It’s our day off…” he opened his mouth to protest that they really didn’t have work anymore and she pressed her finger to his lips, silencing him, he pressed a kiss to it but did as asked.  
“Off from this place and our old lives, off from everyone else and definitely off from ‘thinking’ about whatever it is that just put a crease, right there…” She stroked his brow.

He nodded. Point taken. The irony of her having to say that to him not lost on her. But then he did mope pretty well, he just usually had a cabin to take himself off to do it in, alone.

“Don’t make me kick your ass, General.” She warned and he smirked, sliding his hands down and slipping them under her dress to clasp her cotton panty clad ass firmly. 

“No ass kicking required.” He confirmed. “Ass grabbing though…” She chuckled at the low rumble of suggestion in his voice and ran her hand down his back inside the waistband of his pants to grip his ass just as firmly. 

“Like that?” She hummed and he grinned, lowering his head to her chest again.

“Oh yeah, much better.” He released one hand, leaving the other happily wrapped around her ass and brushed a thumb over the nipple beneath her dress top, wondering how much effort he was willing to commit to tackling all those damn buttons to free the glorious fleshy globes that taunted him just beneath.

“I love this dress.” He hummed, having thoroughly bunched it up around her hips now to expose all of her legs. “Do you think when I’m General of the Minutemen we can have Dress-up-day on Friday’s? It would really brighten up my day and I’m sure it would do wonders for morale.” He pleaded only half joking.

Sam chuckled and bit the lobe of his ear. “Don’t be an ass.” She dug her nails into his and he rocked forward into her making her breath hitch. “I’m quite fond of you right now, best not to spoil it.” He winced, feeling the sting in his lobe and lifting his head to smirk up at her.

“How about just to bed then?” He asked with a very hopeful look and she sighed running her hands through his steadily more salt dusted hair and down to his stubbled chin, her eyes gentle, as if she knew he was doing his darndest to deflect them both from whatever had darkened his thoughts. 

“Maybe. For your birthday. It’s coming up soon.” She conceded.

He groaned not needing to be reminded of his advancing years and buried his head back against the skin of her chest and slowly and meticulously (knowing she’d murder him for a single popped button) began freeing her breasts from the cotton confines.  
“I think I had my birthday present a little early this year.” He hummed when he reached cleavage and buried his nose almost in it with a sigh of contentment. “Okay who am I kidding, this is like ‘all’ my birthday presents.” She chuckled and it made her chest move beneath him even more enticingly.

Sam’s hands flexed and her hips bucked as she tried to get him to press his hips more firmly into her where she wanted him and he resisted. He liked to see her beg just a little.  
“Are you going to have your wicked way with me then or not? Because if not there was a really interesting article I was just getting to abo…” He cut her off with a firm press of his hand between her legs and sucked hard on the ample flesh of her breast, making her head fall back and one of her hands shoot up to clutch at the back of his head, holding him there. 

She seemed a lot more keyed up than he was and he wondered if she’d orchestrated the whole thing with the express purpose of having her wicked way with him instead. Because he’d barely gotten a finger into her surprising wetness, when she was wrestling with his pants and shoving them down around his ass. Her grip was firm and insistent and he gasped as she all but dragged him into position and rolled her hips until he was sinking into her.  
“Don’t you… I don’t know want to slow down a bit?” He gasped as she tightened her inner muscles and seemed to drag him even further in, whilst he steadied himself on an arm beside her head and got his knee into a descent position as she locked her legs around his hips.

“I just want to feel you.” She murmured and lifted her hand to his face, “Look at me, will you look at me when you…?” Sam trailed off then, biting her lip as he began to thrust more firmly into her. As good as he was, he knew she’d need a little help and he tried to slide his hand between their bodies, but she shook her head and slid his hand to her breast, still covered despite his earlier efforts. “Just this.” She instructed and he leant in and kissed her for a moment.

“But you won’t come like this.” He queried certain he knew her body well enough now at least to judge that, even though he’d try his darndest to prove himself wrong. He set about trying to grind his pelvis into hers and get the friction she’d need at least, his strokes deliberately slowing to give her a little more time to build.

“I don’t need to… I just, I want to feel you inside me. I want to see your face when you do.” Jack bit down on a retort about the faces he’d likely pull during this, now wasn’t the time as she clung tightly to him. Sam seemed to be on a whole other page at the moment, had been since that little incident in the surgery. He didn’t even pretend to know what was going on in her head most days, now he had even less of a clue. But if this is what she needed he’d damn well oblige.

“I promise Sam… no matter what we find at the castle, or with Kellogg and the damn Institute, whatever happens, you’ve always got me. Always.” She nodded, pressing her forehead against his keeping their eyes locked and rolling her hips in a way that made it difficult for him to form words let alone think them. He dropped his hand to her ass, lifting her fractionally to slide in at a different angle and he heard the hitch in her breathing and the clench around him. That would do it. He tried to hold on, he thought of England… Hathor, just about everything he could, but the tug of pleasure tightening his balls and that familiar sensation of reaching the top of a roller-coaster, he was about to freefall and he couldn’t stop it. His eyes widened locked on hers and she smiled up at him, knowing, inviting. He came hard his breath shuddering out of him as he felt the pressure burst and his whole body focussed down to that single place where he was buried inside her. It was the best feeling in the world. He stared at her, lowering his mouth a moment to kiss her and press a ‘thank you’, there, whilst he continued to rock into her. The hand that had been clasped onto her breast tightly throughout he loosened, sliding it down and between them finally and running his thumb over her clit and brushed it back and forth as he rocked his pelvis hard into her. His softening cock just enough pressure and he was dragging an orgasm out of her as she clamped her legs around him and her hands worked divots into his ass. 

“JACK!” She exclaimed loudly, her eyes fixed on his and damn if it wasn’t one of the hottest things he’d ever seen. Samantha Carter screaming his name.

“Oh yeah baby.” He murmured and she blinked owlishly up at him through her parted lips as she came down from her high. She hated it when he called her that… he knew that about her too now, which of course made it all the more fun to say.

“Shut up General Hotstuff.” She muttered and he slipped from her chuckling, hey she could call him that all she liked, it was only Piper saying it that had gotten his goat.

Her hand caught his cheek and she turned him back to her, pressing a gentle, almost chaste kiss to his lips.  
“You’ve know you’ve got me too.” She told him earnestly and he smiled, even if his heart did thump a little more erratically at that. “Let’s just agree not to forget what we have. Whatever comes next, this is what matters, really matters. Me and you. Everything else is just…”

She seemed to struggle for an appropriate word, but he thought he took her meaning. After all like he said they had no idea what re-starting the Minutemen would bring. Although the idea of her ever drifting out of focus for him now that she was finally front and centre, well it didn’t seem likely.

“Background radiation?” He suggested grimly and she nodded, smiling gently as her fingers ran through his hair.

“Exactly.”

\---*----

Leaving Diamond City was more of a relief than Sam expected it to be. Curie had voted to stay behind, Sam was slightly irked by this, as she’d been banking a little on the field medical help for their little cross-country trip to the Castle, and whatever awaited them there. But Curie didn’t owe them anything, not really, they had only opened a vault door for her, she’d done the rest. She was free to make her own decisions now. Apparently one of those decisions was Nick Valentine. Sam didn’t want to dwell too much on the strange attraction she’d watched ping between the two machines, or why it left her feeling quite so uncomfortable. But then, Nick made her feel all sorts of uncomfortable anyway, which wasn’t his fault, and he seemed to accept that with grace. Which had only made her feel worse.

Jack seemed to have smoothed that over fine, but as she’d watched him darkly from across Kellogg’s shack, and Nick caught her staring with a hat tip to her, she thought they’d reached an understanding that they’d agree just to stay away from one another. She had too much unresolved to be faced with something like him. Not right now. Once he would have fascinated her, now, frankly he terrified her. Machines weren’t supposed to feel human emotions… she’d seen first-hand the terrible consequences of that and she didn’t need the flashbacks.

“Hey. How’s the liver?” Preston quipped as he sidled up beside her as they found a relatively safe path out of the City limits, and not for the first time she missed Dogmeat, he used to give her a little nudge with his head when someone was approaching her six.

“Fine.” Sam replied tersely. Preston seemed to have found her drunken antics amusing. Not in the least because apparently, she’d had a marked impact on the improvement on the quality of Diamond City radio and it’s DJ. She only half recalled Vadim’s half-baked scheme which had seemed like a good idea at the time to help improve the DJ Travis’ confidence and so the terrible job he was doing on air. But it seemed to have consisted of getting a bunch of guys to jump him and force him to take a stand. Only she had a hazy memory of picking a fight with the wrong bunch of guys, who hadn’t been paid to take a fall. The thankfully fading memory of her fat lip had been enough to prove that her clearly stellar decision-making skills were in action that night. Jack hadn’t said a word about it. Apparently, he subscribed to the notion of ‘what happens in the bar, stays in the bar’ way of working things out. Although he had dialled into Diamond City radio to hear Travis’ somewhat improved more mature radio persona a couple of times this week, swinging her around for a waltz or two in their little love shack. Jack had hastily snapped it off though when Travis had sent a shout out to his ‘Blonde haired, warrior vixen, who’d made a man out of him, inviting her back anytime’.

She’d shared a look with Jack, and shook her head. She had most definitely not slept with the jumped-up excuse for a teenager, she’d hadn’t been that drunk – although she might have recalled planting a big sloppy kiss on his cheek – but she was steadfastly ignoring that. Jack just snorted, clearly not concerned but obviously enjoying seeing her squirm for a moment. ‘Jerk’ she thought, slightly worried that even in her head that came out fondly.

It was as they were traversing their way through a junk yard that her PipBoy picked up a signal for life signs. She spun her wrist around for a moment, confused. They were faint, like they were coming through a dense material, it had some limited functionality for scanning through walls/floors, but it tended to depend on the material. This though, was definitely coming from a few feet away, but faint. Her eyes glanced down, almost expecting a molerat attack. The bastards tended to hang about in places like this. Nothing exploded out of the ground and she approached the junk heap. 

“Carter?” Jack called out and he and Preston stopped their half-hearted snoop through the tip looking for anything useful. Or at least useful to her, as she was the only one that tended to strip mine these places it seemed. She’d actually found some fibre optics in the last junk pile they’d hit which she was itching to try out on something, preferably her power armour but she’d had to leave the damn thing in Sanctuary. Again, she was regretting that decision, but it wasn’t exactly the best thing to wear to traipse across the Commonwealth, it would jam up, it didn’t breath and she didn’t fancy pressure sores. Added to that it’s huge power requirements, recharging the power cores had been her latest trick, but it wasn’t infinite, there was only so many times you could do that before it tended to explode and out here wasn’t exactly the best place to set up a rig to do that. So it had stayed put in Sanctuary with Strugess on pain of death not to let any of the newbies near it.

“Carter!” Jack yelled again striding over to her at her none response, as she considered her options.

“Sir… there’s something alive in here.” She admitted, frowning and following the life sign.

“Well that sounds like the opening to a bad horror movie.” He muttered, getting his rifle out and taking the safety off.

Sam glanced at him. “I think it’s inside something, the signal’s faint. Like it’s going through something dense.”

Preston appeared on her right and they stared at the junk pile full of old washing machines, cupboards, fridges, even an old bathtub or two.

“Hello!” 

Sam took a step back. “Woah.” She nearly jumped as a distinctly tinny voice came from within the remains of an upside-down fridge on her right. She pointed and Jack held his gun over it.

“We hear you.” Jack exclaimed. “Whatcha doing?” he asked giving the fridge a tap with his hand.

There was an answering tap from inside. “I’m stuck in here. Can you get me out?”

Jack gave both her and Preston a look as he stepped forward to the fridge. “Doors jammed shut.” Jack commented after a moment. “Preston, can you go see if you can find something to pry it open with?” The other man nodded, and went to rummage around in a junk pile behind them.

Sam stepped closer to the fridge. “What are you doing in there?” Sam asked.

“Hiding. The sky was lit up like fireworks and the ground was shaking. I was scared!”

Sam pressed her hand to the fridge, “Jack, he sounds like a kid.” She turned to him and his expression got that pinched defensive thing it did whenever children were in danger.

“What’s your name?” Jack hollered at the door.

“Billy. You gonna get me out now Mister?” What was definitely a young man, or boy pleaded. “I’ve been in here ages!”

Jack ushered her back and glanced over at Preston who was still hunting for something to help. “Billy, I’m going to shoot the door handle off this thing okay.” Jack muttered, jiggling the thing and determining it to be the easiest option. “Might get a little loud.”

“I don’t care. Just get me out of here!”

Jack shrugged, Sam stepped back and covered hers ears as Jack pulled out the .44 magnum he’d found in Kellogg’s storeroom, tricked out with all the best mods. “This baby should do it.” He muttered almost to himself and he fired. The handle blew off and she stepped in, jiggling the thing and reaching her fingers in along with a bobby pin to waggle the lock free. 

“I got it.” She instructed and together she and Jack shifted the stiff door.

The smell that greeted them was not pleasant as what was clearly a kid fell out of the fridge. If she hadn’t heard him speaking she’d have thought something died in there.

“Oh wow, thanks!” he exclaimed and looked up. Sam did her best not to leap back in fright, but she realised she’d let out a sound not dissimilar to a squeak and had gripped Jack’s arm tightly, which was good because had she reached for her gun instead she feared she might have shot him in sheer surprise. 

Billy, the kid, was a ghoul. 

He was grinning at them and Jack seemed to recover faster than her as she cautiously went for her gun. So far, the only ghouls she’d met hadn’t exactly been winning conversationalists. Mostly they’d just tried to eat them. But she was reminded by Preston when he put a hand on her shoulder, about what Sturgess had said, how not all ghouls went feral. If their brains didn’t rot they were just regular people. Stuck in a moment of horrific damage.

“How long you been in there kid?” Preston asked looking horrified his hand to his nose faintly and Sam pulled her bandana back up discreetly.

“Since the sky started falling. It was the war wasn’t? Oh man, I got to find my mom and dad. Dad’s going to kill me he always said not to play inside the refrigerators, he wasn’t kidding!” Billy declared and Sam flinched. 200 years, the kid had been in the fridge for 200 years.

She recalled her observations of the ferals. “He must have been dormant or something. Only waking up when roused. His body just shutting down as it… transformed.” Sam reasoned and the kid looked up at her, his rotted flesh truly disturbing to look at.

“Hey lady… don’t talk about me like I’m not here, that’s really rude.” He chastised her through his leathery, skinless lips, and she flinched.

Sam closed her mouth. “Sorry.” She managed suppressing the urge to throw up, she’d thought she’d seen the worst of the Wasteland, but this… this might be it. It had literally no mercy, not even for kids.

Jack grinned at the lad holstering his gun. “So Billy the kid… cool name.” He stepped forward and touched the kid on the shoulder, to the outside observer it looked harmless, supportive even, but Sam realised he was assessing the threat level, and getting a grip in case this went south fast. ‘Billy’ had just woken up from a 200 year nap, he might well be hungry. The kid didn’t react though, he just looked up at Jack with his big blackened eyes.

“You gonna help me find my mom and dad?” he asked and Sam’s heart sank, how the hell could they ignore a plea like that, however hopeless.

Jack hesitated. “Look kid, it’s been a really long time. I really don’t think…”

“We could try, right.” Sam cut him off and Jack gave her the eyebrow with a shake of his head. “Where did you live Billy?” She carried on regardless the desperate urge to do ‘something’ however futile to help the poor boy rose and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I… I think it was that way, everything looks different though, my eyes hurt, its so bright.” Jack whipped out a spare pair of shades from his back and plonked them on the kids head.

“Try these.” Jack said and then looked at Preston. “You’re the expert, you reckon it’s safe to you know… take a walk with him to find his house?”

Preston and Jack shared a look that she didn’t want to interpret, but she assumed they were calculating the odds of Billy going nuts on them when he realised what he’d woken up into. She wasn’t certain he had actually noticed the damage to his own body yet… it had probably been dark inside that fridge and denial was a powerful force.

Preston shrugged. “We’ve handled worse, I say we go look.”

So, they walked the kid home. She and Jack taking up the rear whilst Preston strode along beside Billy who was skipping along.

“He’s spry for a Rip Van Wrinkle ain’t he.” Jack commented giving her a grin and she reached out and touched his arm for a moment. She didn’t know if she should be hopeful or horrified by this boy’s predicament.

“Look, tell me something, hiding in a refrigerator from a nuke… why is that ringing a bell?” Jack looked at her hopefully and she imagined distractingly. He always seemed to know when her thoughts had gone deep and dark, she never was a good poker player.

Sam sighed, she’d had the exact same thought a while ago though and the answer popped into her head.  
“Indiana Jones.” She should know, it was only Daniel’s favourite movie, he’d made them all watch it about a dozen times. She’d have thought the reality of being trapped by his very own crystal skull and his families particularly legacy of that might have cured him of it. But nope, every few months he’d roll it out with a hopeful grin on team night. Of course, any of the Indiana Jones movies would do… Jack had preferred the Raiders of the Lost Ark of course and it had made a change from T’ealcs Star Wars obsession.

“Right.” Jack snapped his fingers, “Crystal Skull.” He sobered as quickly as she had at the memory she realised and she tried not to look at him, she needed not to lose it right now and thoughts of Daniel and everything they’d left behind might just do it for them both.  
“I miss the Space monkey.” Jack sighed.

“Yeah.” Sam replied. “But I’m glad he’s not here too.” She added and indicated the poor rotten boy who’d spent two centuries in a fridge. Life sucked out here and Daniel she knew wouldn’t have been able to just stand by and let it.

It turned out the kid had some sort of super power… luck. Seriously, Jack had stood there, and asked genuinely if they could bottle it or something. Because as they strolled up to the house, it was apparent that mum and dad were indeed still home. Sam considered if it was genetic, something inside that marked some for ghoulification and the rest for a nasty slow death. Because they’d barely noticed their son had been turned into a walking corpse, because he looked just like they did. Smelt as bad too. Apparently, they’d hidden in the bunker under the house – which they’d rebuilt into a shack and waited for their son to come home… it had taken a bit longer than anticipated but he was back.

Jack slipped his arm around her waist as Preston knocked out the glass jawed asshole named Bullet who’d popped up on the road at some point and generally been a pain in the ass, then he’d had offered to ‘buy’ the kid from them. Jack thought they should have just shot him, but Preston was apparently feeling benevolent today and had settled for kicking his ass thoroughly and sending him on his way. They’d offered the family a spot at Sanctuary if they wanted it, they’d declined, apparently a town full of ‘smoothskins’ wasn’t to their tastes. 

They’d walked away, a good deed done for once without any negative blowback.  
“This was odd.” Jack muttered and she nodded and put her head on his shoulder whilst Preston said their goodbyes.  
“So… you ready to head out and find this castle? Meet up with these Minutemen of Preston’s? He tells me we’ve got quite a group willing to come together.” He asked her.

Sam waited a beat too long to respond and he glanced down at her, she realised a fraction too late that she’d made what he called her ‘not-frown face’, it used to fool him, but now he could read her too well. Unease slipped inside of her again as she considered his push to join this milita… or ‘lead’ this militia at any rate. She wasn’t certain it was a battle they needed to wage, it was a distraction, possibly a lethal one, from her actual pressing need to find some way off this rock. But she knew Jack, he’d made a promise to Preston, and she also knew that he was a sucker for the underdog, this group pushed all of his buttons.  
“You still want to do this Jack… put together this militia group?” She asked, not meaning to mute his enthusiasm, but she felt the need to return to her former 2IC role of being the voice of reason, if just this once. After all, he’d made a promise to her too only a few days okay, a promise for them.

“Look I haven’t forgotten Sam, I meant what I said to you.” He stopped seemingly in sync with her thoughts which was almost as alarming as it was satisfying and he reached out to grip her hand for a moment, squeezing it to get her attention.  
“But you know me, I need to do something.” He admitted and she stared at the complicated series of emotions that rose and were quickly squashed on his features as he pushed them back behind his mask. She might have had her little breakdown out here, but Jack… she was well aware that he hadn’t had his yet. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, this place got to him as much as it did her. If this was the ‘thing’ that he felt he needed to do to stay sane, well who was she to judge, she had her machines and weapons to fix up, he had kicking ass and saving lives. It was therapy and God knows they both needed that.

She lifted up on her toes for a moment and gently pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, she meant to slip out of his grasp but he grabbed her and kissed her firmly on the mouth and she cradled the back of his head for a moment, savouring the feel of him. Before inevitably he pulled back, his dark eyes intent on her… and worried. He’d been looking at her like that since she’d stumbled her way out of the drunk tank back at Diamond City, not her finest hour she’d admit. He was probably right to watch her, she felt like something inside of her had come unhinged that day… she just wasn’t sure what yet.

“Sam.” He cupped her chin, and she stared up at him. “I won’t do this if your hearts not in it. Look, I get that this hasn’t been the gentle little cross country stroll out here, if you’d rather we stay in Sanctuary… or go off after this Institute. Hell we can go look for that harbour of Mama Murphy’s if you want. We have the resources now.” He offered and she felt her chest ache a little as she pressed a hand to his, feeling the strong thud-thud of the heart she knew was hers.  
He’d genuinely do anything for her. It was as terrifying a notion, as it was wonderful. Because it made her responsible for them both… he was her CO or ex-CO, she was used to him making the call, but she knew it had switched now, because no matter what he said or promised, he’d do whatever it was she wanted. He’d been right she realised, to hide behind the regs all this time, because the moment Jack O’Neill gave his heart to something, he was all in, everything else be damned. They’d never have been able to operate as a unit before if he’d let himself feel like this back then. It was actually something of a relief, to know that they hadn’t foolishly wasted all these years holding back the flood of emotion they’d been building for one another. It had been justified… for the sake of their team. Their work.

“God I love you.” She murmured and pulled his head down to hers for a moment to kiss him soundly. “But no.” She said firmly, cutting off his questions and suggestions. “We don’t have the resources Jack. Not yet, not to go searching the damn coastline for a sub, or to take on let alone find this Institute.” She admitted. “We’ve only just learnt how to keep ourselves alive out here.” She reached up and stroked his jaw, Jack was the General for a reason, his plans were usually sound. “This is a good plan. You know that, it’s why you’ve been pushing it. I trust your instincts.” She reminded him.

“Still?” Jack pressed, but she could hear the uncertainty in it, Jack wasn’t a man that lacked in confidence, but out here, everything felt like it was upside down. She could relate.

“Always.” She reassured him. “I’ll follow you anywhere. Even through an interdimensional wormhole in time and space.” She winked up at him and both of them chose to ignore the damn elephant in the room that was their shifting power dynamic, in favour of resetting the status quo… for now.

\--- *---

The Minutemen, Jack mused watching the grisly albeit fairly young lot that had arrived in response to Preston's summons, at the pre-appointed rendezvous point at a little burnt out diner just North West and half a click from the Castle. 

They'd come, that said something, giving as going anywhere in the Wastes was, as they'd learnt from bitter experience, an exercise in how to get dead fast, which meant they had some skill. He could use that, everyone alive in this world was already a survivor, hardened, they wouldn't flinch when it got nasty. The introductions had come and gone, they didn’t look too disappointed in him as there ‘noble leader’, so that was something. If anything, they looked eager to get to this Castle and re-take it as their HQ. Apparently, it had been theirs up until a few years ago when it all went quiet. No one apparently knew quite what had happened only that everyone was dead and the artillery support it had offered dried up. Preston might have left some of that out of his little recruitment pitch, Jack scowled at the back of the man’s head now. Not that it would have made a difference, he’d still have come, but this was a surprise and as he’d told Preston a thousand times… he hated surprises.

As it was, once they’d all settled in they got to the prep work ahead of their early morning raid. No one seemed all that interested in sleeping though, which suited him fine. He sat on the floor his back to the one good wall, cleaning his P90 whilst Sam examined the 'Fat Man' weapon one of the guys had bought with him by lamp light. He was pleasantly surprised to see a few female faces, it was an equal opportunities Wasteland after all, and this Earth didn't seem to have suffered the same hang-ups on race or women that his had, which considering the obvious divisions between Nations was surprising, but refreshing. They were all sporting the same weird half up half down cowboy style militia hat of Preston’s, it was sort of ridiculous but he kind of wanted one. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, missing his cap which he'd lost god only knows where on the trek back from Billy’s house, probably that damn blood bug swarm when they’d all decided to hightail it. But he was supposed to be General, shouldn't he get a hat?

“Oy... you there.” he called out and a short but stout looking fella rocked up at his summons. 

“Yes General?” he attempted a snap to attention and Jack promptly pretended he hadn't seen it lest he correct the poor man as he stared nonchalantly up at him, with a lazy two finger salute of his own.

“Name soldier?” he pressed, noticing people didn't offer it as rote out here.

“Leavy.” he replied, Jack was almost expecting the 'Sir', but they weren't 'that' military, just a memory of what it used to be. More like Wasteland Sheriff’s than an army.

“You got any more of those cool hats just laying around Leavy?” The young-ish man just looked at him quizzically, like that was somehow a joke, then he visibly relaxed and started laughing like he was the funniest man on the damn planet. Carter was equally perplexed and he shrugged wide eyed back at her, he didn't get their humour, but then they lived in a wasteland, pretty much anything was funnier than that.

“Sure General. I'll get on that.” He snorted, half saluted and ambled away, without offering him his. General my arse he thought mildly, apparently that didn't rate you even a hat these days.

Sam slid down to the wall beside him and patted his knee. “Stop grousing about that damn cap. I'll find you a new one. A better one.” she cut off his usual protest with that last comment.

“Yeah. Fine.” he muttered, trying not to let her proximity distract him. As usual, Sam looked like she belonged somewhere that wasn't here. Not stuck in the muck and filth with them and of course the Minutemen had made the mistake so many had and overlooked her. Only this time it was nothing to do with being a woman, it was because women that looked like Sam had, other trades than kicking ass these days – they’d learnt that lesson their last night in Diamond City, which had helped with what he suspected were her feelings of relief on leaving the damn place. The guy that had grabbed her ass in the same breath as he’d tossed a bunch of caps at her, had maybe got to experience one moment of heaven with his hands curved around her flesh, before she’d broken every damn one of those fingers and probably permanently cured of him his desire to use his balls again. Jack thought he might have been more shaken by it than she was, he’d had to curb the desire to shoot the idiot, but damn it was always good to watch her work.

When these guys had first rocked up they’d been all excited to show him their 'Fat Man' super weapon that fired a projectile tactical mini-nuke. Minimal fallout, maximum kapow apparently, cause why the fuck not? He'd stared at it intrigued but utterly non plussed as they explained it had apparently jammed somewhere, the sights were all screwed up, and they couldn't get the launcher to slide right. He was good with guns, but he heard the word mini-nuclear warhead and backed the fuck off. They seemed to think that given as he was a soldier from 'before the war' he'd know how to fix the damn thing. 

He'd smiled thinly. “Not my area.” He grinned at them, “Fortunately I bought tech support Colonel Carter!” he barked indicating her with a thumb gesture. “Come work some magic on this.” He gave her an eyebrow waggle in the hopes she wouldn’t embarrass him with a smack upside his head in front of his new team for summoning her like that. Especially after they’d agreed to being partners not CO/2IC.

“Why, so you can blow us all to kingdom come?” She snipped. “Sir.” She added for good measure and he smirked. God he loved her smart mouth, usually the things that came out of it, or that she might let him put in it. Oh god… he had to stop having thoughts like that in the field! They were about to storm a castle and his head, both of them in fact were fantasising about being inside her back in that little shit-hole apartment in Diamond City it hadn’t been much but it had been pretty much a week of mostly domestic bliss with her. But that type of distracted thinking was what got you killed, and almost had about half a dozen times already on the way out here. He had to be rational, but it was so much harder now that he knew biblically what he was risking every time he went out in the field with her. 

“Yeah. I think that's the general idea. Only, they go boom not us.” He rubbed his hands together bringing himself back into the conversation with some effort. “Oh don't pretend like you don't want to get to say you made a miniaturised nuclear warhead gun work.” He cajoled and she shook her head with a wry smile. Then she got up from her position propped against the wall gracefully unfolding her long legs and took it off his hands. He smirked at her and she gave the small group of Minutemen a look that said, 'don't give the idiot-child high explosives please', which he allowed, because you know... generally she was right.

He watched them watching her as she promptly began striping it down to its guts and practically rebuilding it from the remains of the diner and some of the weapon parts she'd been striping out as they'd been travelling along. Apparently 'munitions' was becoming her new hobby in place of her motorcycle, or her sentry bot and she'd handed it back to them without a word. Now equipped with an infrared scope, a marksman stock, and a smooth load mechanism, which if he wasn't mistaken now had room for two nukes.

“Sweet.” he murmured when she'd dumped it in his eager hands. He was practically salivating... good God he was becoming a complete gun nut, clearly this was one of the perks of being stranded with a tech genius. “You give me the best gifts.” He murmured, only half realising what he was saying as he shot his head up to see she had her wide dangerous smile on.

“Don't point that in my direction or I'll strip you down for parts.” Sam then stalked outside to see about her own weapon. He was quite pleased that at least out there she wasn’t directing her pre-battle pent up frustrations and adrenalin at him, but at the idiot 'Tolliver' who had been admiring her mad skills. Apparently, her ability to attract a nerd fanclub was alive and well out here he counted three members now with Sturgess and Travis. This guy though was spouting some serious technical jargon that she was nodding along politely too, which was kind of refreshing he thought. Jack watched quite content to let her handle it, as she selected her tricked out automatic 10mm and the suped up plasma pistol to go in with and threatened the persistent prat with both. She escaped and Jack smirked up at her as she slid back down the wall to sit beside him, hand resting on one of his bent knee’s and giving it an affectionate squeeze. He grinned as he considered she’d actually escaped ‘to’ him, he kind of liked the idea of being her safe space. 

His ears perked up and his mood plummeted as the scouts brought back news that there was a huge nest of Mirelurks inside the Castle walls. Jack had no idea what a Mirelurk was, but it didn't sound good. Anything with 'lurk' in its name, was probably not going to make a good pet. Not like Dogmeat, thoughts of the dog were still raw. He missed him, particularly out there in the wastes, it had helped having a companion that didn’t talk back and knew when to follow his lead. Not that Preston wasn’t great, but the man had a tendency to bloody wander, it was like he just decided the scenic route looked good or got distracted by something shiny. Even Sam had commented on it and she was the one normally wandering off to explore something ‘techy’ back in their old life.

He was hyper aware of Sam’s hand on his knee he realised as she stroked his thigh in a way that looked idle, but he knew was deliberate. She was staking her claim so to speak and damn did it feel good to be claimed. Timing though was everything, and whilst this wasn’t the first pitched gun fight they’d had out here against a bunch of bedded in nasties – not by a long shot – it kind of felt like the first time he’d waged a battle with a team of soldiers. Perhaps that was why it felt wrong to have her so close, to slide his fingers through hers, feeling the flash of guilt once more to be doing that, as he was thrown back into CO mode. But then he'd always found Sam's presence a contradiction, equal parts soothing and distracting. He didn't know how but she still 'smelled' like Sam. Aside from all the gross that the Wasteland had dumped on him, but her skin, when he tasted her neck, her mouth and other bits...he grinned to himself in self depreciating humour, shaking his head. He was going to get shot out there probably running behind her his eyes on her ass. 

She was going to be the death of him he realised grimly, he’d spent his entire life preparing for battles… but he never even saw her coming, she’d blindsided him with a disarmingly wide smile, a flash of baby blues and a torrent of technobabble. He had to focus. Not easy when she had to go and be so damn casually alluring in her leather duster, patrolman shades and enough combat armor strapped to her body to encourage him to look at the bits it wasn't moulded too. Shit he was an old perv. She smirked at him and squeezed his thigh suggested she knew exactly where his head was at. Damn her.

“Something funny, Colonel?” He snarked and she bit her lip.

“No...Sir.” She rasped under her breath in the way he liked, just the tip of her tongue flicking out to lick her lips and his dick twitched. Damn her all to hell. He got up hastily, giving her a warning look that she rolled her sparkling eyes at, amused to all hell it seemed that she got under his skin so easily. Damn adrenalin junky he recognised the signs in her too and she was wound up tight at the idea of a battle, only for the wrong damn reasons.

“So,” he exclaimed and clapped his hands for effect and trying to banish the thought of dragging Sam out back for a quicky. The move startled the rest of the men though and only made her laugh, as Sam sat back, one leg up her hand draped over it, looking far too fucking casual with those taunting eyes now closed, catching a few moments rest. 

“Someone, anyone, give me the 411 on these Mirelurk-things. All the ugly juicy details please, leave nothing out. Places to go, people-or things, to kill today.” He joked... they didn't laugh. Damn it, he used to be funny. They all looked at him blankly not volunteering any information, looking at him like he was nuts. 

“Oh for cryin out loud! For the last time people, we have literally been living under a rock, a lot of rocks, in the vault... vault dwellers.” He pointed between him and Carter, using the cover story they'd concocted that pretty much explained things like this.  
“That's 200 years in an ice box with nice happy memories of a world where things worked, there was cold beer and there weren't giant irradiated monsters running about trying to rip your head off. But nothing practical for right now, aside from 32 years of military experience and a shit tonne of luck.” He groused seeing dawning comprehension, about damn time. 

“So... Mirelurks, quick as you like and we'll get to blowing them the hell out of the Castle.”

\---*---

Turns out they weren't that much of a problem he realised as one reared up to attack him pincers and legs going, he blew it away with a triple barrelled shotgun that if he ever got out of here, he was totally taking with him. Why the hell hadn't they put three barrels on these babies before? Maybe he could convince Carter that four barrels would be the dogs unmentionables... see what she could cook him up. Either way, these Mirelurk-things were basically giant crabs, hard shells soft and squishy ugly as hell under-belly. The eggs were a fucking nightmare though, he'd resorted to a damn machete tossed to him by one of the others to do away with the little buggers. Although the flamer Carter had suddenly appeared out of one of the inner rooms with, certainly seemed effective. No one should look so God damn sexy wielding that much kerosene lit up like a tiki-torch... and yet.

“GENERAL!” There was a wall of shouts and noise and he glanced up, jogging forward on alert along the castle ramparts, sliding down an all but rubble wall just in time to see the mother of all Mirelurks emerge from the sea. He thought was probably literal.

“Now that's a big Mama!” he exclaimed. “Guess we know who's been laying all the damn eggs.” He turned to Preston. 

“It’s a Queen!” Preston roared back looking slightly panicked. Never a good sign.

“Throw me the Nuke Gun... eh, carefully.” He added and the man’s nervous look graduated into a smirk clearly at Jack’s expense from his continued aversion to handling anything with 'nuke' in it, even the damn Nuka-Cola they all swore by which honestly, how the hell had it not gone flat after 200 years?

The huge launcher was shoved into his arms and he flipped it around, he was probably the best shot with heavy ordinance, plus, if anyone was firing a rocket propelled nuke at a giant killer-Queen-crab it was damn well going to be him. Fortunately, the she-Queen was immense and getting closer, which meant very little aiming was required. He launched and the small yield nuclear missiles sailed towards his target, with grim satisfaction he watched them hit. 

The explosion knocked him on his ass, along with everyone else and threw up a shit tonne of radioactive water as it sent a crashing tidal wave against the walls of the castle. But that thing was well and truly dead… chowder pretty much in fact as ‘stuff’ rained down around them. 

Jack blinked, surprised he could still see after a flash like that. Sam had warned him to use goggles if he wanted to fire it. He turned around, spotting her stood on the top of one of the old ramparts guns out at the ready to double tap... he'd taught her well he mused. Then he was literally assaulted by a whole bunch of excited, barely washed militia as they thumped and roared and generally made enough racket to drag another round of bloody mirelurk larvae out of their nests. 

They spent the rest of the day hacking and slashing their way through seaweed and nests and eggs. Although apparently there was a pretty good recipe one of the guys had for Mirelurk Omelette which he was just about hungry enough to try at this point, which was a sad state of affairs. 

On the whole, it went well, one wounded but not seriously (although he used to consider losing a hand a fairly bad day), one broken leg from a guy who'd literally fallen into the old boarded up but still intact armoury through a bunch of rotten floorboards. Handy though as it had a whole bunch of turrets, some weird electrical traps, another big Nuke Gun which Preston had nabbed. He felt justifiably quite proud of their little group as they assembled in the centre courtyard of the mostly intact castle walls. They'd followed his pincer manoeuvre perfectly and it had been like shooting... well crabs, in a barrel.

He glanced over, he was developing a nervous tick he realised as he scanned the faces and walls for signs of a blonde head... he spotted Sam over by the communications array with one of the stetson wearing militia, they had their heads down examining the central mast that had a whole bunch of satellite dishes and computer looking tech. A radio beacon apparently, to put the Minutemen's 'Freedom Call's radio station back out on the air. A network, which once up and running again throughout the Commonwealth could answer the cries for help that otherwise went unheard and un-mourned. 

Hope Preston called it. Jack liked to think of it as purpose.

Aside from keeping himself and Carter alive he’d not had much of one of those for a while... As for hope, well getting Sam and himself home and out of this hell pretty much stayed on top of his list. But really that last challenge was her area of expertise not his. As for the women herself well Jack wasn't entirely certain what she thought of the Minutemen and their cause. But she was still there, beside him, fighting the good fight, trusting his judgement that this was a fight and a cause they needed to be a part of. That was good enough for now, but he couldn't help but feel a sense of 'disconnect' from her, like she was going through the motions, or waiting for someone to shout 'it's all a dream' at her. She’d been like it since that run in with Valentine and clearly suffering some PTSD flair up over the whole memory stamped humanoid robot’s thing. He wished he knew how to help her.

He was kept busy most of the rest of the steadily dwindling day and by the time he'd helped secure the entrances boarding up what they could with some grand ideas about repairing it, he was looking for Carter…again. He found her inside one of the Castle's old state rooms, curled up on a fairly decent looking bed with her gun beneath her pillow and her jacket under her head, her blonde hair spilling out across the pillows. Damn. His breath caught as much as it always had seeing her like that, quiet and soft in her sleep, her blazing eyes and impossible mind as silent as they ever got as he imagined she dreamed ten impossible things before waking.

There were two other occupied bunks, so he crept in quietly and with his hand firmly over the pillow so she couldn't go for the gun he knew she’d slid under there and shoot him in her sleep addled state, as he slid into the bed behind her. He wrapped his arm around her middle and scooted close, ignoring the sudden startle from her as she went rigid, his hand clamping down around her wrist and stopping the move to the gun. 

“It's me.” He promised, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Go back to sleep.” He urged, “Your safe.” There was a sour sounding murmur that he thought sounded a lot like her sassing him before she shifted back against him, moulding her body to his and stilling until her breathing evened out again. Jack smiled, being curled up around Carter was a gift on any world, but right here and now, it was a lifeline, one tonight he was too shattered to enjoy thoroughly as he found sleep dragged him down all too easily.


	16. Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: gore/disturbing themes – don’t read the first section over dinner. Lots of feels after that though between our favourite couple.

[2 months later]

Life in the Castle was pretty good, all things considered. Jack learnt a bit of stone masonry doing the backbreaking work to repair the two crumbled walls. In fact, having become intimately familiar with the Castle, Jack realised he had actually been here before, on their Earth; this was the old civil war place, Fort Independence. Kind of ironic he supposed given that was exactly the opposite of what the Minutemen were trying to do. This movement was less about ‘every man is an island’ and more about ‘every island is a part of a chain’. Or so one of the more poetic lads in the group had waxed on about when he’d mentioned it.

But day to day life wasn’t unlike Sanctuary. He did get to do a bit more training now with getting them into shape and leading target practice. It was kind of fun getting back to basics, PTE, training with Sam and showing off her hand to hand expertise as she kicked his old-ass all over the square. The group lacked combat instincts and tactics, having only ever been in skirmishes where they were usually outnumbered. So, Jack taught them everything he knew about surviving an ambush, fighting when outnumbered, or with bigger opponents. 

Most of all, he just tried to make sure that they all had a steady two meals a day. Preston was instrumental in that; the supply chain they had set up with all the armed caravans traipsing across the Wasteland seemed to be working out. Plus, the Castle turned out to have some pretty fertile grounds, so they managed to convert an entire section of the courtyard into a farm. The mutfruit with the Donapple seeds secured from the Vault were now growing up along the ramparts, as they were hardier and didn’t need much soil. In a few months they would have a properly self-sufficient farm going here. 

Which is what led him to his current predicament as he stood glaring down at the weasel who ran the meat processing plant, that supplied a large part of this area with ‘fresh’ potted-meat. Jack had taken Sam with him. A rare trip out for her as she’d had her head buried in getting the artillery turrets they’d scavenged from the armoury, up and working... Something he had more than encouraged because, damn! that would be helpful. A weapon that could rain down the fires of hell on a ghoul swarm was definitely a priority. But right now, he was kind of enjoying being out here alone with her. There wasn’t much time for them given they were both being pulled in different directions at the moment, what with all of her little projects and his responsibilities. But Jack realised he had to make the time, or he’d wake up and realise he was in a goddamn long-distance relationship with the woman he’d been pining over for 8 years. And, he’d have broken his promise back in Diamond City to boot! God! That felt like ages ago now, but it couldn’t have been more than a month or two ago… could it?

The woman in question looked about as amused as he was, as she observed the ‘meat’ this guy had been using with something approaching horror. His stomach lurched dangerously again. If he got through this, he was officially calling himself ‘General Lead-belly’.

“It’s not my fault…” the weasel snivelled. “The scouts kept coming back empty, and I had to pay ‘em… I needed the meat!” The guy tried to scramble away looking terrified of him. Rightly so, because Jack had never wanted to murder someone this thoroughly since Ba’al and that was saying something.

Jack grabbed him by the throat and slammed him down hard onto the table, a gun to his head. “You fed me, my Minutemen and half of Boston, fucking ghoul meat!” He snarled, having already vomited twice in an attempt to purge it, and felt another wave of nausea take him which he breathed through. Thank God Sam had politely declined ‘tinned spam’ when she’d seen it. No wonder there were reports of people starting to get sick from the meat.

When Jack had got his gag reflex back under control again he pressed on the pressure point in the jackasses’ shoulder. “Is it just ghouls you’ve been mincing in here?”, he glowered. The idiot nodded and Jack shared a look with Sam. He dragged the guy up by his feet and across to the scaffolding above the machines where the robots were carefully processing the genuine radstag and brahmin meat he had procured, before it got mixed in with the main component behind the curtain; feral ghouls. His stomach twisted and white-hot anger flared.

“Don’t lie to me” Jack hissed and dangled him bodily over the top of the scaffold, a hand around his throat, just enough air to grovel through. “I’m going to give you one chance to ‘fess up… then I’m going to drop you into your own mincer” he threatened, knowing his black-ops face was showing as Sam shot him a slightly alarmed look. Clearly, she couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. Hell, he wasn’t certain himself right now.

“It’s just feral ghouls… just them I promise!” The bastard all but squealed. Jack believed him, he was accustomed to telling when a man under duress was lying to him. Which meant that it was probably just a lack of opportunity, stopping this asshole from making use of his latest venture.

Jack glanced at Sam again and she shook her head, her expression pinched as she turned away, clearly not wanting to see whatever it was he chose to do to this guy. Jack thought it telling that she wasn’t openly disagreeing. The guy had crossed a line, the calls across the Wasteland to investigate why the meat had gone bad and what was happening to a couple of the caravans, had landed on the Minutemen’s doorstep. He wasn’t about to turn away from the answer, no matter how unpleasant the task.

Time for hardball, this guy honestly sickened him. “And what about that group of caravaners that came by… my group, who’ve been busting their asses up and down the Wasteland to help us? Or are you telling me they were ghouls?”. Jack got right in his face, letting him see how far past the edge he’d gone, and just what he intended to do about it.

The weasel froze and looked up at him in wide eyed terror. 

“You knew the ghoul meat was making people sick and sick product doesn’t sell, so you thought you’d switch to killing regular folks. You are literally Sweeny Todd. You sick bastard!” Jack snarled and feigned throwing him over into the mincer below, catching him at the last minute as the guy shrieked wildly. At least he hadn’t had the chance to actually ‘process’ the human meat. Jack had wandered off from their little ‘tour’ earlier and found the caravaners mostly dismembered in cold storage, all good to go. Ghoul meat was bad enough, but ‘people-meat’ – he wasn’t sure he could have processed if he’d eaten that.

“NO!” the bastard shrieked and pretty much pissed himself. Disgusted, Jack dropped him back on to the scaffolding where he slumped into a crouch on his knees, glaring up at him with red rimmed eyes. “You fucker! I’m trying to make a living out here!” he snarled up at Jack. And there it was, the look Jack had been waiting for. The solider in him refusing to kill an unarmed man without being damn well sure he was a killer. There wasn’t remorse there, just fear, for his own life and anger that he’d been rumbled.

“I know.” Jack replied his voice flat. Then he reached out and snapped the guy’s neck. The look of surprise on his face might haunt him, but the guy genuinely didn’t seem to understand the issue with murdering folk or ghouls and serving them up to eat. He couldn’t take the chance with this guy, or anyone else thinking they could do this and not face consequences. People were looking to him for leadership of the Minutemen, for order and justice in the Commonwealth. Already there were over 20 people at the Castle wanting to join the Minutemen cause and the number of volunteers seemed to grow weekly. They were all his responsibility now, along with every travelling caravan securing the trade routes, and all the farms and communities they supplied and protected. He couldn’t afford to be exploited like this or stand by whilst good people were killed, and unwittingly fed ghoul meat. He’d become the ‘Man’ again he realised grimly, only this version of him needed every ounce of the black-op skills set he’d hoped to retire.

Sam’s hand went to the back of his neck and he turned slowly dropping his head to her chest and just inhaling the scent of her, as she caressed the short hairs of his scalp. Once upon a time he would have shrugged this off, given her a black-eyed stare and moved on; the unflappable black-ops soldier. Now she knew better and he knew better than to hide it.

“It had to be done.” She assured him. Jack let out a deep sigh, dropping his hands to her waist and letting her absolve him for a moment. “It was better than dropping him in the mincer.” She added quietly, clearly disturbed by the threat he had made.

“He’d have deserved it.” Jack muttered, sighing and looking up at her, seeing the shadow of something in her face that he didn’t want to press. He’d eaten the damn meat. Sam however didn’t comment, she just stepped away, leaving him standing there with this head hung and nausea roiling in his guts again.

“I’ll get on the radio to the Castle, get some of the Minutemen over here to start this place up again.” she called back. “If the problem is sourcing the meat, we’ll talk to the farms.” And there she went, back into practical problem-solving mode. Sometimes Jack wondered what she’d do when the day came where there was nothing to fix. “Look” Sam sighed rubbing her head and picking up on his line of thought without him saying a word, “This guy might have been a monster, but he was a decent engineer. He got the processing plant up and running perfectly and the robots do the majority of the work. We can use it.” she admitted grudgingly. Although how they’d purge the system of the ghoul meat he didn’t want to think about, and it annoyed him that Sam would have to think about it.

Jack nodded lifting his head slowly and trying to find something positive, something, even a glimmer of hope in this. “Not for nothing then yeah?” He sighed coming to stand next to her, wanting to be near her, even if they both smelt like vomit in a charnel house. She reached up and brushed his cheek with her hand giving him a sad look that spoke volumes. She hated what this place did to him as well.

“Sam, can you get on the horn to your little boy-toy over at Diamond City radio? Give him the 411 and let him know the problem’s dealt with. The Minutemen will make sure the supply is back up and running, and safe.” he asked and she nodded, shaking her head a little at his refusal to stop teasing her about DJ Travis as she wandered off to make use of the short range they’d found in the offices here, which had been set up to talk to the suppliers.

Jack glanced back at the guys body. He reached down and picked him up, tossing him over his shoulder, his knees protesting as he took him out back to bury the asshole. Better than he deserved, but it felt wrong not to do something. He supposed he could have vaporised him but that seemed like a waste of ammo. He strolled back inside when it was done to find Sam sat at the computer. 

She looked up and nodded. “It’s done. Some of our guys are heading out now. We’ll do a weekly rotating shift pattern out here.” she informed him. “Travis is going to spread the word over the airwaves. He told you to keep up the good work too.” Jack came to stand in front of her and stared down at her, resigned to the next seemingly endless series of tasks just to keep them fed and sheltered.

“That all he said?” Jack teased, her eyebrow quirked back and a faint blush he hadn’t seen in a while travelled up the back of her neck. Curious.

“Jealous Jack…? So cliché.” He leant down and kissed the top of her head. 

“Insanely.” he replied. “Best not to push a man on the edge.” She smirked and patted his chest like she didn’t think he’d actually tear the punk nosed little snot a new asshole if he heard one more damn comment about the blonde-bombshell out of Vault 111, broadcast all over the damn Wasteland.

“So!” He clapped his hands together, not eager for the next bit. “We got a basement full of not quite dead enough feral ghouls to deal with. You up for it or want to wait for reinforcements?” he asked. Sam looked like she’d seen enough horror for one day, and she’d been more squirrely around the ghouls than him since their little cliff dive.

She wiped her brow. “Let’s just get it done. I don’t like the idea of those things running around down there, not when we’ve got people coming to set up shop. I want to make sure it’s safe.” Jack nodded, he understood the feeling all too well. Didn’t mean he liked the idea of dragging Sam down to a basement full of monsters though, but such was life out here.

\---*---

The signal was faint, and Sam spent several days triangulating it with what she had, including using her PipBoy, in a way she was certain was never intended, to try and get the GPS position linked in. But she thought she’d done it and the answer was not quite what she was expecting. She stared at the blip on her PipBoy now, directly North of their position, smack bang in the harbour. An encrypted military signal that seemed to have been broadcasting for a long time, some sort of distress signal she figured. But it wasn’t this world’s US military. She had made a note of all those picked up so far, including their codes from their various locations dotted around the Commonwealth. This was foreign. Sam stared at it again. Mama Murphy’s words, which seemed like an age ago now, coming back to her. “Why don’t you go see what the Glowing Sea threw back.”

Sam debated whether to tell Jack. Given their somewhat differing shifts these days, it was possible she could go out and take a quick look without him even realising she was gone. But that seemed a little reckless, even for her. Irritation bloomed slightly that they were out here in a damn apocalypse and fate was still conspiring to keep them apart. Well fate, and maybe their own work ethic’s. Jack was fully invested in making his Minutemen ‘all that they could be’ and defending the Castle was becoming a full-time job. Particularly recently with the sheer number of people that were turning up at their doorstep looking to join up. She was just as guilty she supposed of hiding away in the armoury, or her ‘new-Lab’ as Jack had dubbed it, until the early hours of the morning. It seemed there was constantly something in need of fixing or building, if not for here, then for the settlements and requests seemed endless down the supply-lines. It wasn’t exactly mentally stimulating work, but it kept her busy, and it could occasionally be fun, if your type of fun was a shotgun with a grenade launcher and laser sights. 

If she was honest though, she preferred to leave the ‘Minutemen’ bit to Jack, she still felt a twinge of guilt and self-recrimination that she was stuck hiding inside a Castle of all things. Not when she should have been out there finding the technology that might get them home. If it existed of course. But Jack didn’t push her that much anymore, giving her a lot of slack from the duties everyone else around here had to do, given her role was unique – and no one else could fill it. Or at least no one else was stupid enough, not to volunteer to whole up in a dark basement, full of things that might go boom.

If she wanted to go off on this little road trip she didn’t think Jack would oppose it, he was all for letting her throw her ‘snowballs’ if she needed it. But this one might be a bit of a stretch, given as it was a hunch, based off a drugged out crazy-ladies ramblings. She didn’t want to risk anyone else on what might be a dangerous ‘look-see’ as Jack would call it, he was particularly protective of his Minutemen these days. If Sam was honest, she had been on enough field trip missions with Daniel to know, that the ones that looked the most harmless, were the ones most likely to go catastrophically wrong. Usually from a side-ways direction she wasn’t anticipating. She didn’t want to see the disappointment and pain etched into the lines of Jack’s face, if he needlessly lost another life from under his command out here. Especially not to satisfy her curiosity, which is what he tended to consider her attempts to get them home these days. That irritated her too, and she huffed, she could almost see the expression on his face. The twist of his lip as he tried to think of a way to dissuade her, he firmly believed that continuing to hope like this was just setting herself up for disappointment. She thought of it as being pragmatic, after all they were never going anywhere if she didn’t at least keep looking. 

If she wasn’t going to include Jack in this little trip, she did have other options. There was a Merc by the name of MacCready that had stopped by a couple of weeks back and seemed to have forgotten to leave. Sam had seen him in Diamond City, in the Dugout Inn, at the bar fight that she’d told Jack she categorically didn’t remember. He hadn’t gotten involved, at least not until she’d been pinned by two guys; one with the knuckle duster that had split her lip. At which point MacCready had cleared them off her, tipped his hat and let her carry on. Chivalrous, maybe honourable, but not really a stick his nose in type. So far he’d been harmless here. Preston had no time for him, but then that was because MacCready wanted paying for his help. Guess he figured, stick around here long enough and someone would start calling out for the support. That and it was secure. MacCready had chipped in to help for rations and was renting a bunk they’d erected in the dormitories. Sam also noted him watching the military drills and the hand-to-hand sessions they ran. She suspected he’d been taking it all in like a sponge.

Jack wouldn’t like it. He didn’t like her going off out there without him period, neither did she particularly; but he’d especially not like that she’d be doing it with a hired gun. Sam tapped her fingers on the wooden table and considered. She needed to know what was out there. MacCready was loyal enough so long as you paid him, and she had the caps for it. Plus, she’d seen him in target practice. He’d be a good second, and he liked to keep ranged which would suit her style out there as she had no intention of getting up close and personal with anything. 

But she’d have to tell Jack she realised, no matter what she decided. If nothing else because she wasn’t stupid enough to go traipsing off into the middle of the bloody ocean with a man she barely knew. But also, because if she was honest with herself, she wanted to push him just a little, to know that he still cared what she did with her time and where she went. Stupid maybe, but she’d spent more than a few nights in the past few weeks alone in their bed. Considering they were supposed to be ‘in this together’ and ‘partners’ it was very much starting to feel like the General O’Neill command structure again. Which was fine for the Minutemen, but not for them.

Sam found Jack in the corridor to the ‘canteen’ they’d put together in one of the larger rooms, complete with a stove and even a couple of cooks. He was sat there clearly trying ‘not’ to taste the slop being served for breakfast, obviously missing his Fruit Loops. Jack without a sugar fix, was like her going without her morning coffee, unpleasant for everyone involved. Maybe she could try and pick him up a pack of that ‘Sugar Bombs’ cereal Preston swore by, because they hadn’t seen any of that in a while.

She came to stand in front of him and he paused spoon half way to his mouth and she stood there. Thrown for a moment. Was she asking permission? Or telling him? He raised his eyebrows expectantly as she froze.

“Sam?” he asked, “You gonna sit, or what?”

“I’m going out to look for a sub I think I’ve found, a few clicks North of here in the harbour. I’m taking MacReady, I’ll probably be a day or two.” She was standing ramrod straight, her hands clasped behind her back and she glanced down at herself, damn it. Her words had been, ‘telling him’ but her posture was definitely ‘asking Sir’.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you when I get back.” She tried to dart away, realising that maybe she hadn’t thought this through, or got her head screwed on straight enough. 

“Hey!” he barked after her and she put a bit of speed into her step, striding down the corridor. She wasn’t about to let him stop her. He’d promised her snowballs, and she was damn well going to throw this one. She heard him scramble after her, the crash of a chair and she glanced back to see him striding after her.

“SAM!” he yelled, “Will you stop!” a few people looked around clearly startled to see their General all but chasing after his ‘wife’ and she cursed her feet in distraction when they led her into a dead end, he rounded the corner looking flustered and grabbed her arm.

“What the hell Sam?” he snapped and she stared up at him, irritation and anger blossoming in her and finding a target for the months she’d been stuck ‘not looking’ for a way out of this mess.

“I’m going Jack. You’re not stopping me!” she swore and tried to tug his arm loose.

“We’re going to talk about this, like grown-ups.” he hissed, trying to keep his voice down and glanced around nervously, as aware of the curious audience as she was. He gave her a dark look and all but frog marched her around a few more corners into ‘their’ room. Or at least the one that everyone else let them have out of respect and courtesy. Apparently, being ‘married’ got them perks, along with the militia hat they’d finally found him. She hadn’t bothered to correct that, half the Wasteland thought this man, who looked mad enough to spit feathers right now, was her husband. Hell, half the time she sort of thought it too. After all she’d been considering marrying Pete, a man she’d known for less than a year. Compared to that, being even pretend-married to Jack made a lot more sense. 

He spun her around to face him and they stood staring at each other, breathing a little heavily. His cheeks had a touch of colour and his eyes had darkened; oh he was pissed. She knew that look well, she’d seen it more than enough over the years, not always directed at her, but it hadn’t lost any of its power.

“What the hell do you mean you’re running off to search for a sub with MacReady?” he managed to get out and she suspected that hadn’t been the first thing he’d thought of saying. But there was a pang of hurt in there with the anger she suspected, which was something she supposed. 

He crossed his arms and stared her down when she didn’t immediately answer. She had to admit, he looked fairly intimidating in that getup. The black militia hat with its one side pinned up and wide brim. Matched with his new fancy Minutemen General’s, dark blue smoking jacket, complete with four gold stars on the collar. He’d been less than impressed with the idea of putting it on when she’d discovered it in the secret basement of the armoury, along with it’s last owner, and a lot of empty booze. He’d thought it looked like something from a period piece, but he’d put it on eventually, mostly under duress from the more senior members of the Minutemen. They felt it would boost morale, to see him strutting around in it, but she personally thought it just painted a giant target on his back.  
She just liked to see him strutting in it, the trim really suited his shape and enhanced his chest and arms. Plus… she’d always been a sucker for a man in uniform. But right now, that hat, and ‘that’ stare, with that blue, well it was hitting her all wrong again just like in the canteen. He wasn’t her damn boss anymore! But he was slipping back into that role a little too easily, seeing him wearing the stars again. As it turns out, it wasn’t being a General that had disagreed with him, it had been a desk-bound one that did it.

Sam tutted, blowing out an exasperated sigh and plucked the hat straight off his head and sat it on her own. He blinked staring at the hat, his arms uncrossing for a moment as he seemed to pick up on her not so subtle cue, that she wasn’t about to let him order her around right now.

“Jack, do you really need me to repeat myself? You heard me just fine.” His scowl deepened. “Look what is it that’s bothering you really?” she asked pointedly. “Is it that I’m going out to look for a sub, or that I want to take MacReady instead of you?” There was a bite to her words that she didn’t think he could miss.

Jack’s arms crossed again, his hands gripping his own elbows tightly. “Let’s say both right now. Both are equally nuts ideas.” 

Her patience snapped a little. “I’m not asking permission Jack. We weren’t doing that anymore remember. Your not my boss.”

“Oh don’t give me that bullshit Sam! No, I’m not your boss, but I’m your… other-half.” He managed finally struggling to find a word to define them, she knew he hated the word ‘boyfriend’. She had to agree with him on that, it had very little bearing on the depth of their feelings. Even if right now what she was feeling, was the rising urge to smack him. “We’re supposed to talk about things. Make decisions together.” he snapped.

Sam pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing. “In case you hadn’t noticed Jack, you’ve not exactly consulted me on much of anything lately, how many times have you gone off on one of your little jaunts out to this settlement or other? How about that quick job to liberate the General Atomics factory without so much as a word in my direction! Have you any idea how useful it would have been for me to actually choose the parts your team decided to salvage?” That one had irritated her.

“You never said it bothered you.” he replied, his tone clipped.

“It bothers me.” Sam retorted, plonking herself down on the couch and propping her legs up on the coffee table as she stared up at him, anger bristling.

“Well if it bothers you so damn much, come with me more. You know I’d prefer you at my side out there!” he declared, and Sam huffed.

“You really don’t get it Jack do you?” she declared staring up at the ceiling and counting to ten. He made a sound close to a growl and threw his hands up in the air, turning in a tight circle.

“What the hell do you want me to do Sam. Ignore a cry for help? This is what the Minutemen are all about, this is what we do for crying out loud!” he roared and she flinched slightly seeing the real anger there. Maybe the first real flash of it she’d seen since they’d been stranded here. He’d finally blown a lid off it, but she wasn’t about to back down. She was every bit as angry right now. This wasn’t the way she’d planned her life either.

“No, it’s what you do Jack!” Sam pointed out sharply. “This Minutemen thing has taken over your entire life out here… and I’ve supported you haven’t I?” he didn’t answer, so she ploughed on. “But I will not abandon my search for a way home, not when there’s credible intel. I expect you to show me the same support!” She gave him a dark look, suddenly realising that this might be the first honest conversation they’d had, since they’d set up shop in the Castle. It had been so much easier back in Sanctuary. Just that small group of people to look after, keep themselves to themselves. Out here he’d spread himself so thin. There was also in the back of her mind the memory of his confession, that being stranded out here wasn’t exactly the worst thing in the world for him. Which, if she was honest with herself, she kind of resented. Particularly the fact that he seemed to be adapting so well out here, and that he was more than happy to have an excuse to shed their former lives and the restrictions that came with it.

“The Minutemen are a means to an end Jack.” she reminded. “My job, in case you’ve forgotten, is to miracle us a way off this hell hole. Or did you forget your promise to me as well?” she stared up unblinkingly at him.

“Snowballs.” He growled. “I didn’t forget.” he hissed. “I didn’t forget a god damn thing!” he hissed, reaching down and gripping her tightly by her arms, crowding into her. She stared intently back up at him from her seated position. 

“Great, so you’ve not forgotten, you’re just ignoring it.” she retorted up at him. “You know what I think? I think you’ve gotten comfortable.” she replied, “This is all one big adventure to you… one where you get to fuck me.” she bit darkly, the rare profanity shocking her almost as much as it did him. He dropped her arms and backed off like she’d bitten him, and she felt a flicker of guilt. They’d always gotten under each other’s skin, which meant for particularly effective rows, but she winced internally. That was probably a little harsh, but damn it, it was how she felt, and she didn’t want to go back to half-truth’s and unspoken tension between them because she couldn’t be honest. They owed each other that much. Then again, they’d once required a damn alien lie detector to make them admit their repressed feelings for each other, so what the hell had she expected?

“You want me to stop fucking you?” he growled glaring daggers at her, his lips formed over the words ‘fucking’ with true distaste. He hated it when she referred to what they did together as ‘that’, like it cheapened it somehow. 

“I was under the impression you already had. I can’t remember the last time you managed to slot fucking me into your busy schedule.” she retorted coldly. Of course, that wasn’t strictly true but she didn’t care right now, she wanted to yell at him and it didn’t matter what they were arguing about at this point. Although it certainly had been a few weeks at least. This went deeper than that and it was festering somewhere inside of her. Part of her felt like she was becoming his little woman, waiting for her General to return from the frontlines. That wasn’t her and worse it wasn’t even him, yet somehow they were letting it happen.

The way she was feeling had clearly struck a nerve in him, because he stood there in front of her, towering down and dangerously still. She watched as he ran one trembling hand through his hair, his own anger bleeding through, she recognised the sudden flood of adrenalin through him, a hard-earned combat response. 

It had been a while since they’d had a blazing row too she recalled, and a completely unwarranted flicker of arousal piqued at the thought. God she was screwed up. Pete had pointed out to her once that she seemed to enjoy picking fights. She was starting to think it was that same adrenalin rush she’d just watched flood Jack, that she was chasing. Just like in the rest of her damn life, an adrenalin junky until it got her killed or ended up leaving her alone. But Jack knew that about her and he wasn’t stalking out the door this time.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Samantha, I’m doing this, all of this, for us.” he told her darkly, butchering her name into something colder than she was used to hearing. “So we can survive out here. Or did you forget what it was like those first few months huh? When there was nothing but the damn plaster board walls and a leaky roof to keep us safe from everything that wants to kill us out here!”

“You think this is safer?” she asked incredulously, but she knew her argument was hollow, because damn him, his points had been valid. It was a hell of a lot safer now, she wasn’t dodging wildlife just to go to the bathroom, and if raiders attacked it wasn’t just her sentry bot and a rifle she had to rely on to keep her alive.

“I got you a damn castle Sam!” he barked, “And you know what they worked pretty well for folks for thousands of years. Since when the hell did you become an ungrateful Princess about all this?”

Sam blinked. “Princess?” she sat forward her irritation with him becoming full blown fury at that comment, as she dropped her feet and placed her hands sharply on her knees. The urge to smack him rising as he quailed a little at her look from what had to be his deliberate goading, but as always Jack O’Neill, headstrong and stupid in the face of danger, ploughed on. 

“If the tiara fits.” he retorted, and she barked out a laugh suddenly at the incredulousness of this damn conversation. He genuinely had no idea what she did to fill her time out here, or why this routine they were slipping back into was bothering her so much. My God it was like he was regressing into the alpha male cliché he used to mock.

“You’re an idiot Jack.” she muttered, falling back into her seat, disappointed. He should have known better, known ‘them’ better. “This Princess, is going out to find that sub and attempt to use it to get to Antarctica, so she can rescue herself and the idiotic soldier she got stuck here with. And I’ll be taking MacReady.” she growled, glaring at him, her arms crossed. “I don’t much care what you do right now.”

He didn’t comment but his eye twitched at the other man’s name. She’ll admit, MacCready was prettier than most out here and a lot younger than Jack. Not that it mattered to her one jot, Jack was literally the only man she had any interest in. But it irritated her that he seemed to at least have to check himself from making ‘that’ comment. Maybe he thought she was just that shallow, or fickle. God knows what he thought of her if he had resorted to calling her a Princess. 

“You’re deliberately picking a fight.” he told her quietly, his nostrils flaring as he tried to get a hold of his anger and took steadying breaths. He looked down at her from his towering position, through those steely brown eyes, daring her to lie to him. She pressed her lips into a thin line. 

“You’re the one who started name calling.” she reminded him. Fucking Princess. Oh, he’d pay for that one she’d make damn sure of it! But he probably wasn’t wrong about her motivation here. She’d gone, almost spoiling for a row, to that canteen. It seemed like for once Jack and Pete finally agreed on something. But she wasn’t stupid enough to bring Pete’s name into this particular conversation. Nothing had the tendency to make Jack storm off more, than the mention of her ex-fiancé.

“Because your acting like a crazy person.” he growled, starting to stalk in a large circle, pacing, like a lion in a cage… like he wanted to pounce on something. The thought, bought that unexpected flicker of arousal racing back to the front of her mind, as she sat there watching him. His movements tight and jerky, tension in every line of him. 

“I guess it’s my royal prerogative.” she replied snidely, dismissing him if he was dismissing her comments and feelings in this, as nothing more than the rantings of a ‘crazy person’. Sam crossed her leather clad legs and looked pointedly at the wall. She was mildly worried that if she kept looking at his face, she’d genuinely hurl something at him, possibly herself and either would be undignified.

She heard him stop pacing, “Oh, I know how this goes, the silent treatment. I’ve been married before remember!” he pointed out rhetorically, and she heard the way he stopped abruptly, going as still as a rattlesnake, as he realised what he’d just said. Especially in the context of this argument. She turned her head to glare at him coldly.

“Not to me.” That one stung them both and she looked away again hastily, hating that he was right, she was spoiling for a fight. But she was just so damn angry and scared half all the time out here; they practically bathed in adrenalin and cortisol. Half the time she honestly had no idea where to put the rest of her emotions anymore, they seemed to have no place here. Jack cleared his throat and he looked a little more contrite, when she glanced back at him. Clearly a few calming breaths had worked for him, where it had failed for her.

“Look, putting all that aside in a big box of personal issues, we will be dealing with at some point.” Jack pointed at her sharply. “You don’t even know this MacCready guy.” he insisted finally. His tone going for more reasonable than ranting. Sam suspected he clearly wanted to say more, accuse her of more and had decided to take the higher road. 

“Right Jack. Fix the problem, leave all the ‘feelings’ back in the damn room, that’s your MO all over isn’t it?” she accused waspishly, hating the words even as they left her mouth. But they were bubbling up inside of her and apparently, they’d been sitting inside festering for some time now. “That’s what got us into a mess in the first place.” she reminded him darkly. One particular room and one particular day in mind.

“I’m not arguing about that with you!” he snapped. Looking even angrier if that was possible as he stalked up to her and placed a hand on the arm rest, leaning in and crowding her. “And I never claimed to be that guy Sam, I don’t talk about my feelings.” His dark eyes bored into her. “I prefer doing.” He flipped his precious milita hat off her head and tossed it across the room, like it didn’t matter and her eyes followed it in surprise.

Then he was kissing her, his lips pressed hard and fast over hers startling her, as she almost inhaled him. She was so distracted by the abrupt turn around that she didn’t notice or maybe didn’t care when he moved them. Until she was suddenly pressed beneath him on the couch. Her hands pinned at her stomach, trapped by his iron grip and his weight. His face hovered over hers, dark eyes flashing with pain, anger and undoubtedly arousal. Well, at least she wasn’t the only one.

“What makes you so sure there’s a sub?” he rasped against her cheek changing the subject, or rather getting back onto it abruptly, now that he literally had the upper hand. Sam stilled beneath him, feeling her heart rate hitch at the proximity, as he pressed his knee firmly and provocatively between her legs. A flicker of a grin curved her lips. They were both messed up she realised, with a spark of alarmed pleasure, but she wasn’t certain it was entirely because of this place. This was just what they were, what they’d always been. They had both always liked living a little too close to the edge. 

He pressed his lips to the inside of her neck, and she was almost helpless to let him manipulate her anger into passion. It shouldn’t work so damn well, but she sighed, accepting his weight over her. “Just something the old bat said.” she replied, leaning up to suck on his pulse point too for a moment, using her teeth just a little and licking the mark she left with a gentle sweep. Jack wasn’t the only one capable of reducing the other to a puddle she noted as he groaned against her and his other hand slid from her hip to the flat of her stomach, then reached up beneath her top.

“Solid then.” Jack rasped and in one aggressive movement had her flipped onto her stomach. Sam attempted to counter him half-heartedly, only to find her hands pinned at her back, with his weight pressing down on her. It shouldn’t have been arousing, not really, but it had been a while since he’d touched her like this. Since he’d had the time, or perhaps the energy. But it seemed the two of them and a couch was a potent combination. 

“This isn’t about the damn sub. Oh I’m sure that’s the catalyst, but I know what this is about,” he hummed against the back of her neck, “I’ve been neglecting you, neglecting us.” he admitted quietly, pressing a kiss to her temple. 

“Frankly General, Sir… I wasn’t sure you’d even notice if I’d gone.” she taunted. Okay, so she hadn’t given it more than a split-second thought of going without him, but she thought he deserved a little riling-up right now. They’d spent the better part of a month almost drifting past one another, too busy or exhausted to connect, hell other than falling asleep wrapped around one another, they’d hardly touched. She bucked up beneath him or tried to, hissing in frustration when he applied a little more weight to her arms. Jack chuckled and bit the back of her neck, just a nip, but the feel of his teeth there was like a jolt of electricity, setting her skin alight. He hadn’t managed to pin her like this before, not with the clear intent of keeping her there. She shuddered at the feel of him over her, pressing his groin firmly into her ass in a way that left her in no doubt what this little dominance play of his was doing for him. She should have known. What was stranger was the way she found she wasn’t entirely averse to it, to letting him take control, sexually at least. 

Jack stiffened over her and she felt his hand dig slightly into her skin where he was gripping her hip. “Me not notice you…?” he all but mocked. “Now who’s being a dumb ass.” he declared, so she pushed her hips and that ‘dumb’ ass back into him. She liked the moan it drew out of him and he pressed back in response. 

“Sam.” he all but groaned and she smiled. She loved to hear him like that, when everything was stripped away and all she could hear was how much he still needed her. “If this is you jealous about how I spend my time, I’m kind of liking it on you.” he grumbled and kissed a trail across her shoulder, shifting her top aside to expose her skin there, the feel of his lips there making her arch into him a little. It really shouldn’t feel so good all the damn time, especially not when she wanted to be irritated with him.

“If this is you jealous of who I spend my time with, I’m kind of not.” she bit back. 

“Touché.” he replied, his fingers slipping further beneath her top to stroke up her spine. The heat of his touch making her eyes shut for a moment, as a shudder worked through her and she flexed her hands in his grip. Jack tightened his grip, pulling her arms up a little further by her wrists, until she could feel it start to ache in her shoulders. She let out an exasperated huff, trapped.

“Are you still mad at me?” he rasped against her ear.

“Yes.” She groaned, but he didn’t seem remotely interested in stopping to ‘chat’. If anything, she felt him press harder into her and she gasped. Ok, so she was definitely enjoying being manhandled a little. 

“I can’t give you poetry Sam. Hell, I wasn’t good at the whole married thing when I’d done it properly.” he sighed deeply and dropped his head to her shoulder, his hand slipping around to her stomach. But I can give you my word, that no matter what distractions are out there, or in here… I’ll always put you first.” he paused. “I could never give Sara that.” Sam stilled, oh wow, now that, that was something. 

“That was my mistake. I won’t make it again.” he admitted. But he didn’t say Charlie’s name… he couldn’t, not to her, not yet; maybe he never would. Almost like he’d walled up that part of himself, that version of him. That broken part that he refused to heal, or couldn’t. She felt him stiffen against her, as though admitting that had cost him.

Sam stilled too, sensing he was uncomfortable having put himself out there. But he’d done it for her, she wasn’t mad enough that she couldn’t see what that meant. “For a guy that doesn’t do feelings, those are some big ones.” She pointed out and arched back into him, lifting her head to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw.

“Yeah well, I’ve got Samantha Carter pinned to a couch telling me I’ve been ignoring her. That makes me feel… feelings.” He admitted and she could hear a lot of conflicting things in his voice. “Speaking of feeling.” His hand slid from her stomach straight into her pants and she gasped in surprise and bucked up into his touch at the feel of his thumb against her clit. His weight moved and she was pressed flat into the couch below, she exhaled sharply at the feel of him. It was an effective way of silencing her, she’d give him that. The fact that she was slick and waiting for him made her blush into the cushions. 

She felt him grin against her skin, pushing up her top to place a row of kisses down her back. Paying special attention to the little freckles on her shoulders he loved so much. He’d confessed not so long ago out here, that he’d been a little obsessed with those tantalising little blemishes, ever since the first time he’d discovered them. Which apparently, was after he’d copped an eyeful in Hathor’s little make-believe SGC, while she had been groggy and he was rescuing her naked ass from the cryo-pods.

“Tell me if you want me to stop.” he told her firmly flexing his grip on her wrists in his hand. Sam grit her teeth and remained silent. “That’s what I thought.” He huffed out a chuckle, clearly starting to enjoy himself. “Admit it Colonel.” he rasped against her ear. “You like it when I pull rank… just a little.” Sam thrashed slightly and he slid his body, his thighs in particular, more firmly around hers. His fingers skimmed the light dusting of curls between her legs again, teasing.

“Admit it” he practically purred, his teeth around her lobe. “And I’ll touch you the way we both want.” 

Sam felt her hands fist. “Don’t be an asshole.” she hissed up at him. 

“That’s asshole ‘Sir’.” he reminded, his fingers tracing a circular pattern just above where she wanted it, her stomach clenched with need. Damn him if he wasn’t right. Maybe she had picked a fight with him because she’d been feeling a little neglected, amongst other things. Sexual frustration was something Sam had been acutely familiar with for years but, apparently, she was out of practice, because she could feel it now with his proximity. Like an itch crawling over her skin that she desperately needed to scratch. God damn him!

“I’m not calling you Sir in bed.” she snapped back and twisted her hip as she pulled. She had a brief cry of elation as she managed to get her hands out of his grip, rearing back into his chest only to realise he’d let her. He pulled her upright flush against his chest and wrapped an unyielding arm around her torso, pinning her to him. His knees nudged hers a fraction apart, keeping her unbalanced and leaning back into him for support.

“Pity.” he growled, “I used to have some pretty racy fantasies about that.” He pressed a kiss to her jaw. 

“Fine. I like it. So stop teasing me Jack.” she growled back, and he smirked, his thumb flicked out over her clit roughly making her throw her head back onto his shoulder, her hips arching up to meet him and betraying her need, even if she hadn’t said a damn thing.

“Yeah I used to have fantasies about you saying my name like that too.” he groaned. Then he slid his fingers into her with little warning, heat wrapped around him, drawing him in as Sam arched her hips with a cry of ecstasy, trying to draw him closer, but finding he was already right there, pressing them together.

“This is on you too you know.” he growled and she bit her lip, gasping at the way his fingers worked inside of her. “So lets have a new promise, from you this time.” he muttered and stilled again. She groaned.

“What do you want me to promise?” She dropped her head back against him, feeling his arm tighten around her to hold her up, like this it wasn’t fair to hold her to ransom right now, because she might agree to anything.

“You’re the one that’s better at feeling feelings. So how about next time you have some, you come talk to me.” he instructed. “Tell me when I’m being an ass huh? Or when you need me, or even when you don’t.” he pressed his lips to her ear. “Lets for once agree to be honest with each other, about what the hell’s going on with us. You don’t need to run off and do something stupid to make me take notice.” he rumbled and his voice made her shiver. 

“No. That’s normally your line.” She laughed and he chuckled, smiling, at least he wasn’t denying it.

“Promise me.” He dropped his lips down and worried the skin on her shoulder with his teeth. His thumb twitching gently over her clit in warning.

“Okay.” It was all she could muster, after all, she was nearly as bad at this as he was. Denial it seemed, was a two-way street. Then he pressed down sharply with the thumb over her clit and her hips rocked back against the hardness of his body.

“I’ll hold you to that Samantha.” he warned and she couldn’t help but nod, turning her head into his neck. She watched his pulse beating strongly there, before she closed her eyes as he began to expertly manipulate her body. She’d waited a long time it seemed to have the best sex of her life, with the one man she’d fantasised about having it with. He’d moaned about how this had been 8 years of her teasing him, but it seemed like now he was the one that liked to tease, as he withdrew his fingers from her heat, and she let out a soft sound of disapproval. Jack slid back, shoving her leather pants down and taking a moment to fondle her ass and slide his fingers into her from this new angle. She almost fell forward her legs shaking with effort, until she realised that he had her safely, his arm tightening his hold and keeping her upright. It was a toss-up to decide which she loved more, she realised panting quietly as he quickly started bringing her to climax; his clever fingers or his voice? Right now, it was a rumble in her ear telling her things that would have made her blush once upon a time. The word ‘beautiful’ falling from his lips, shouldn’t make her clench around him quite the way it did.

“Oh God…” she was going to come, when suddenly his touch vanished and he was holding her firmly, his grip on her wrist tightening as he held it across her chest, trapped. Sam was breathing heavily, her hips grinding back into him in the hope that he would continue. Jack groaned and slid his hand from between her legs to pat her ass almost apologetically. She dropped her head, frustration building. She knew what he was doing and was both insanely aroused and impressed that he could get her to this point, whilst being mad as all hell about it.

“If you’re going to that sub, I’m coming with you.” he announced. She heard his zipper go down, then his belt, finally the fabric rustled and the head of him rubbed along her thigh just brushing between her legs and she couldn’t help but push back a little into him. “You can take whatever boytoy you want with you. But I’m not taking no for an answer.” he growled, the command clear in his tone, probably because he knew it would rile her.

“Or what… you won’t finish what you started?” she rocked back against him and they groaned in tandem as she felt the head of him brush her. 

“Oh, I think we both know I don’t have that level of self-control.” he admitted sounding shaky. His fingers slid around the front of her and pressed firmly against her clit making her cry out in surprise as he kept up the pressure until her legs started to tremble, and her stomach fluttered, the sensation building to a head. Sam wondered if he was toying with the idea of building her up to just leave her like this, dangling on the edge. She’d been responsible for her own orgasms for a lot of years, so it was hardly going to stop her. His next words surprised her though.

“But I might keep you in lock up for a day or two, for disobeying a General’s order.” he warned, and she gasped, his fingers pressed and rubbed furiously suddenly in unrelenting strokes. She shut her eyes against the building pressure. She didn’t especially want to come to the idea of him locking her away like a damn Princess in the tower, but then she thought that had rather been his point.

“I knew you had a woman behind bars kink.” she rasped, trying to take some measure of control back but he seemed to be steadfastly ignoring her, not getting drawn into anything else. She bit her lip as he removed his fingers leaving her on the brink again and she groaned in annoyance. For a man that she suspected, and had all but told her, didn’t have the patience for orgasm denial, he was certainly making a good go of it.

The head of him brushed her again and she flexed her parted legs against his as he held her thighs apart with his own. The lack of control she had right now was making her incredibly aroused. Or maybe it was just being his undivided focus again for once, to feel how badly he wanted her. She hadn’t always been the most confident woman in relationships, always afraid her own social awkwardness and lack of experience with ‘normal’ behaviour, fearing that it made her unlovable somehow. After all, before Pete, her ideal of a normal relationship had been Jonas, and she was under no illusions anymore as to how fucked up that whole situation had been. But Jack, he was slowly teaching her that there was nothing unlovable about her and certainly not undesirable, even when she pushed him. 

She practically whimpered as his hardness slid along her, she was so sensitive now even as she tried to increase the friction or move him where she needed him. “Jack, I swear to God, if you don’t fuck me right now, I’ll incinerate that god damn hat of yours.” Her eyes dropped to where it had been tossed carelessly on the floor and she felt his dick press, then in with one swift thrust he was inside her. With a startled cry she fell forward as she was suddenly released from his grip, barely managing to catch herself on her hands. She took in one stuttering breath after another, at sudden shock of their bodies coming together like that. 

“You know, I think my kink is ‘you’ giving me orders…” Jack groaned, pulling back and bottoming out in her again until she was clutching onto the cushions beneath her. Balanced precariously on her hands and knees on the sofa, her back arched almost violently into the movement. She’d lost the ability to talk as his hands gripped her hips firmly, moving her body into each thrust. Usually she needed a bit of help to reach her peak during sex, but he’d got her so close to the edge and the feel of him inside, at this angle, he was hitting her just right. It didn’t take long. It never seemed to with Jack, and she wondered how it was he always seemed to know what she needed. Then she stopped wondering anything, her mind went blissfully blank and the pressure burst. Sam let out a harsh cry as her orgasm crept up on her with one last hard thrust of his hips. As she came back to herself, her head buried in the couch she realised her heart was pounding, and she tried to calm its racing. Her body was flushed with hormones, all of them good and she took a moment just to feel the rush pushing out the darker impulses. Jack’s hand slid over her back and she trembled around him and from the position as she nodded and he started thrusting again, searching for his own release with a relentless pace. It was too much, she could feel herself building again, her legs trembling violently and she fought the urge to scream, or cry. Too much.

“Jack!” she managed to bite out. It was all she needed to say, he could clearly hear the tension in her voice and feel the way her arms were giving in on her. His hand slipped around her waist and pulled her back onto his knees. Instantly the unbearable pressure the feeling of ‘too much’ vanished and she groaned in relief dropping her head back against his shoulder. His hands rose to cup her breasts, palming them in time to a gentler rhythm between her legs. This was what she’d missed she realised dimly through the haze of pleasure and peace she was feeling. Being in sync with him. Of feeling known, understood, loved. Enveloped in his arms, his hard chest pressed against her back, she felt like they were one for a moment. She turned her head to the side, not surprised to find him waiting as his mouth instantly claimed hers. Sam lifted her hand to his cheek, cradling him there as he stilled his movements.

This right here, was what she adored about Jack O’Neill, the contradiction of the alpha male and the tender lover. The protector and the warrior. The soldier and the man. He flipped so easily between them that sometimes she wondered if either state was real; but in his arms she’d never felt anything but safe.

“I’ll do better.” he promised sounding strained as he fought his own bodies reaction, she could feel him hard and trembling inside of her still, on the edge. 

“At what?” She hummed.

“At us… at being a couple.” he explained, feeling she wasn’t getting his point in her addled state. “You know how I feel Sam.”

“You’re doing fine.” she rasped, dropping her head back as her breathing hitched at the feeling of him moving slightly inside of her sensitised heat. His large rough hands wrapped around her breasts, squeezing in a glorious counterpoint beneath her shirt.

“Fine?” He snipped sounding affronted. He released one of her breasts and gripped her chin, sharply turning her head back so he could kiss her hard, their teeth almost clinking together. Then he tweaked her nipple, forcing her to let out a cry of surprise. “I give you, leg shaking, body trembling, dripping orgasms… and I get a fine?” He cupped her between her legs to prove a point and she groaned arching back into him as he kept up his thrusts. 

“Amazing then.” she groaned meaning it, “And you know what I meant… in here we fit, but out there, I think we have a bit more work to do.” He huffed and tapped her thigh. “Move.” he instructed, and she cocked an eyebrow at him. “If you want me to give you another mind-blowing orgasm, you need to move. My legs have gone to sleep, and this is sort of a stress position.” he muttered not looking nearly as bothered by that as he sounded. 

She smirked and provocatively ground her hips against his lap before she lifted off him, feeling the loss for a second to flip around. Straddling him, she took the opportunity to push him back down into the couch instead. “I don’t need you to give me an orgasm Jack… I’m perfectly capable of taking what I want.” she reminded him, and slipped over his still hard length, watching as his eyes shuttered closed and his mouth fell slack for a moment.

“God Sam, your going to kill me.” He murmured, gripping onto her hips and starting to move in a way that made her highly doubt that. He liked to say that, the hang up in their age entirely his. But for a man in his 50s he more than had the stamina to keep her happy which had been a nice surprise, but then she’d known he kept himself fit. With Pete, they had been much more closely matched in age, but he’d been a once a night kind of guy before promptly rolling off to sleep, although he’d tried to make up for it in foreplay. Jack didn’t seem to need the foreplay. Not that he didn’t use it, he just didn’t ‘need’ it. With him all it took was one of his patented liquid stares and the barest brush of skin, to have her going from 0-100. She also wasn’t sure she counted Jack’s fingers inside her as foreplay, with him that was very much classified as sex.

Realising what she was doing, the comparison she was making, she hastily pushed thoughts of Pete away. She hadn’t thought about him in months, now that was twice now in one day and she wasn’t sure what had made her this time. She certainly didn’t want to think about her ex, whilst she was with Jack like this. Although perhaps given the way she’d felt earlier, the frustration and irritation at the strange state of her and Jack’s relationship, maybe it wasn’t so unusual. She’d settled for Pete and she’d been relatively happy. Jack was everything she’d wanted… so why wasn’t she happier? Then again that was hardly fair and she cursed her inability to shut her own brain off. She overthought everything, including them. But comparing her relationships, when what she had with Jack was blighted by this world and the horror they’d landed in, was grossly unfair. The fact that she could be happy about anything out here, had to be a testament to them, and him.

Sam refocussed her attention entirely on the man underneath her. On Jack looking up at her with those liquid black eyes, his desire laid bare for her, in a way she’d longed to see for years and she was missing it! Her hands traced over his chest, steadying herself as she rocked them together. Their distance was as much her fault as his, she had to own up to that and figure out why it was that they kept finding excuses to be apart out here. But she could at least be here for him now. So, Sam focused in on him, on moving her body, rolling her hips and using every muscle she had at her disposal, until he was the one trembling and bucking up into her with a hoarse cry. He clutched at her hips, as she ran her hand over his rapidly rising and falling chest, pushing her hand beneath the shirt to feel his warm skin. Sam sat there over him, feeling him soften within her.

“I need to do better too.” she admitted. 

Jack groaned and shook his head, his hands trailed up her back and he guided her down onto his chest and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Not from where I’m lying.” He sighed looking thoroughly content. She smacked his chest lightly, feeling a faint blush. How the hell could they do ‘that’, then he could say something mildly sweet and make her blush?

“That’s the sex talking.” she pointed out, faintly amused, if a little exasperated. She’d probably lost him from any real conversation for the next ten minutes.

“Then we should definitely do all our talking like this.” He curled his fingers into her hair, keeping her against him for a bit longer and she considered that he was right, it seemed they were only ever honest with each other when sex was involved. She didn’t necessarily want to look to deeply into the reason for that, or what it might mean for their future.

“This is a snowball Jack, a big one. I have to throw it, because I haven’t even thought about making one in a long time.” She admitted quietly, returning to their little ‘snowballs chance in hell’ analogy for her hopes of getting home. Sam lifted her head to meet his dark eyes and she saw how tired he was too, how much this place took from him. “Do you think about it at all, home?” She pressed and he pursed his lips. “I don’t just mean the things… the people?”

He shook his head gently. “No. I try not to.” He admitted looking disturbed by that, but she thought she understood it perfectly. 

“I guess surviving out here doesn’t really leave much time for anything else.” she sighed, “And when I think about our friends, the SGC, everything we left behind…” huffing she let herself remember it for a moment, “a world where everything worked, it was clean and there was food in the fridge just waiting.” She pressed a kiss to his chest. “Monsters aren’t just outside waiting to kill you the moment you drop your guard. Where we can sleep without needing to be on shifts constantly.” Shaking her head, she let it wash over her and blinked back tears. “It feels unreal Jack. Like it was someone else’s life. I can’t imagine going back to that.” she stroked his cheek, “I’m worried the longer we spend out here, the less we’ll be able to go back, even if we had the chance.”

Jack’s fingers rose to slot into hers and hold her hand there over his chest. “I know. Thinking about it, it’s hard. It’s different to being here. And I have the same thoughts sometimes, but I came back from lots of dark places in my time.” He admitted and there was a shadow that passed over his features and she wondered, which of the dark places he had gone to. “I never came back the same though. Every time, something got left, or changed. That’s how you survive. We won’t be the same either, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go back. We’re different now and I don’t mean just this.” He indicated the two of them together and she nodded.

“How so?” She murmured, wanting him to open up, even a crack at the moment, so she could see she wasn’t completely alone and slowly going nuts out here.

Jack’s fingers trailed down her back slotting under her shirt to warm her skin, whilst he considered. It looked like he might give her an answer. “Well, for starters I’m not normally this into couches, I usually prefer a bed.” She chuckled and he smirked, “But I guess its not being answerable to anyone. I’ve lived my life under orders. Even when I tried to retire there was always someone yanking on my chain. Mortgage, job, taxes, laws…” he blew out an exasperated air. “Routine.”

“And now that’s all gone.” Sam nodded, she got that, could understand how some people would find that freeing. Personally, it sounded like her nightmare.

“I know. I mean I know a lot of good stuffs gone, but, so’s a lot of the crap I hadn’t realised had been weighing on me. I mean now, there’s no memo’s, no men in suits, no reports. I make the plan, I execute the plan, we got out for beers, I fall into bed with you.” He sighed with a faint smile. “Simple.”

Sam pursed her lips. He’d said it before, but it never got any easier to hear him admit that he genuinely seemed to like the freedom’s out here. Despite the fairly major hang ups.

“I miss the order.” Sam replied quietly. “The routines. The rules. I miss being, I don’t know, part of something bigger. The military gave me purpose.” 

Jack tensed slightly. “Is that why you like…” he gestured at them and then grimaced. “I mean, you seem to like it when I you know, take charge when we’re like this?” She stared down at him, surprised to see the awkwardness there.

Sam ran her hand across the smattering of chest hairs, not looking at him. “I don’t know. I didn’t used to, at least I don’t think I did. But then, I’ve never slept with you before. Maybe it’s a you thing? Or maybe I’ve never met anyone that could take charge of me.” she admitted and he grinned, nodding up at her. She suspected he was suppressing a come-back to that. Fearing he’d get her mad again having just calmed her down.

She could fee his heart beat jump slightly beneath her fingers and wondered at it. “Jack I need to go after this sub.” she told him suddenly, steering them back on track. “That signal surprised me,” she sat up slightly, and he propped an arm behind his head, waiting for her to explain. “I think it made me feel, guilty. It was like a bolt from the blue and maybe I felt like I hadn’t been looking hard enough for something like it.” She rubbed her forehead and stopped when she realised what she was doing, dropping her hand as she slid off him and moved onto the side of the couch. He followed, reordering his shirt and pants. “I’ve had this prophecy of Mama Murphy’s for a while, and I never looked into it. I mean we’ve been here almost two months in this Castle now and I haven’t really thought much about anything outside its walls. I think I liked pretending ignorance for a while.” she confessed, and he stared up at her with those big dark eyes. Jack sat forward reaching for her and she let him wrap her in his arms, holding them together. His hands slid to her face and captured her, as he brushed his fingers through her ever longer hair. The blonde of it had gotten lighter in the sun-baked weather and started falling in gently curling waves, without access to products or a hairdryer

“Sam baby,” he hummed against her, “We’re alive. That’s enough for now. No one expects more of us. I don’t.” He sighed and brushed her cheek with his thumb and she was slightly mortified to find tears there. He didn’t mention them, just quietly brushed them away which she appreciated. “And you haven’t forgotten anything. I’ve seen your PipBoy don’t forget. I get a data dump from it every few days onto mine. Honestly I don’t need reports out here.” he chuckled and pressed a kiss to her lips. “But I’m glad you do them. Because if order and routine is what you need to stay sane, then that’s what you do. And to be honest, knowing that your still looking, that keeps me sane.”

“But I’m not looking Jack, I haven’t exactly been working the problem.” she tried to make him understand. 

“No, you haven’t worked the problem!” he growled. He hated it when she cut him off in the middle of a thought, particularly with the wrong idea. “Not in the way you normally do which involves you forgetting to eat, sleep and go home!” he accused, a particular pet peeve of his even before he started to feel personally affronted about her lack of needs being met. “A habit FYI we need to nip in the butt again.” He added, clearly not liking her hiding in her new lab for all hours. She rolled her eyes.

“I like working.” She shrugged, not apologising for it. 

“I know, that’s not what I’m….” He grimaced, “Let’s try a new tack. Tell me how you found that signal in the first place?” he probed, and she sighed dropping her head and sliding off his lap, the stickiness between her legs telling her at least she wasn’t failing their relationship in this department. Sam headed to the side of the room to the wash bucket and took care of it. Jack didn’t comment, just stood hitching up his pants and came to stand behind her, silently waiting for her response. She glanced at the open doorway. They really needed to get a door sorted for the damn room. Granted their room was down a secluded corridor but anyone could walk in on them, and she was sick of being a damn exhibitionist out here.

“I was scanning frequencies.” she admitted. “And I know what you’re doing.” She turned to point at him and tossed him the washcloth. He caught it deftly and smiled haplessly at her, his lips quirking deliciously. She felt a flare of arousal again that she tampered down for now. She had things to do today and spending all day in bed with him was unfortunately not on the list, even if by some miracle they wouldn’t be disturbed.

“What am I doing?” he shrugged going for hapless and missing. Sam bit back down on the obvious response, because they both knew he was trying to make her feel like she hadn’t given up. 

“Okay so maybe I was looking for something like this, some military signal, or outpost, something on non-civilian channels, something, different. Something that might indicate technology and life. Maybe this Institute even.” she admitted. It had been the first time she’d articulated it though, but she suspected he’d probably worked that out from her data ‘dumps’. She was faintly impressed that he’d looked through them. But then that had been his particular talent, pulling strategic weak points and goldmines out of the noise.

“Uh-huh.” His grin grew smug and he wrapped his arm around her waist as she tried to get past him, drawing her in close. “We haven’t snuggled.” he groused and pressed a row of kisses to her collarbone and just held her close. Content it seemed.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes and she let herself relax into him. The tension she’d been feeling coiled in her belly and knotting the back of her neck had eased and she knew this improbable man in her arms had a lot to do with that. “You have too much faith in me.” she muttered. 

“No such thing.” he replied. “Sam, what you’re doing right now, how you’re doing it, it’s a healthier way of fixing the problem like the one we face, where there is no quick solution. Shocking notion for you I know, but sometimes these things take time.” He curled her hair behind her ear and stroked down the back of her neck affectionately to soften his words. “You have to kind of, make it a hobby. Like you said our job right now is survival. And yeah, I’ll admit I’ve been kind of sucking at the work-life balance thing.” he groaned, leaning up and kissing her solidly for a minute, or two, she wasn’t counting. “Yeah, I’ll definitely work on that,” he groaned, “cause that’s just all sorts of wrong, when I have this to come home to.” he conceded self-depreciatingly and she smiled against his lips, ‘charmer’.

Jack reached up and stroked her cheek with his thumbs. “I just…” he pulled back and kissed her forehead, staring at her like she hung the moon and stars, “I worry. Like all the damn time.” he confessed, raising his arms to indicate everything. “So this, the whole Minutemen thing; us inside a big-ass Castle, the food supply, weapons… it makes me worry less.” he looked at her nervously, like she was going to yell at him for wanting to keep them safe. God she was being an ass, if she made him feel like that. 

“About me?” she quirked her lips reaching out her index finger and stroking his chin. His mouth lifted up at the corners too, his eyes widening in faux innocence as he debated if he’d get his ass kicked for that statement. She tried to lighten the tone a little. “It’s okay. I like that you worry about me.” she admitted surprised at how much she didn’t mind about that. 

Jack let out a breath. “Oh, that’s good. Cause I do that… a lot.” he stressed. “Now and pretty much always.” he confessed, and she reached up and pressed a kiss to his lips, before squeezing his ass as she sauntered past. 

“Now that you’ve thoroughly reminded me why I keep you around, wash up. We’re going on a sub hunt. Sir.” she declared grinning at him and seeing the answering flash of excitement in his eyes. They were so screwed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lead-Belly is a perk you can select that reduces radiation damage for eating irradiated water/food and yes that Meat Factory quest is a real one to stumble across… you don’t want to know the alternative solutions, aside from killing him, they got a little dark. I imagine most were quite grossed out by the start of this Chapter, it was unfortunately necessary, I want to point out (in true Fallout style) how much of a light in the dark Sam/Jack are and a reminder of what they are facing. What they do out here, that the choices they make – matter.
> 
> This was originally one very large chapter (16-17) I hadn’t realised how big. Big thanks to my new beta ‘Neverbefore’ for pointing out this could easily be two chapters and for taking the time to read both of them and help clean it up. This Chapters ballooned a bit now too, but I couldn't help all the feels.


	17. Old Guns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to my new Beta- Neverbefore, who really helped with the idea to split this into its own Chapter and of course for the grammar checks!

Jack took a team with them. “Better safe than sorry.” he’d said, patting a few of the younger recruits on the back. Sam had a feeling this was their first mission, they looked a little green. She was using the term mission lightly. It was the first time they had gone out and attempted to act as a cohesive unit; making use of all the military training Jack had been drilling into them. At least out here his scenarios were fairly damn realistic. Dropping a group of new recruits into a pit of larval Mirelurks with only a hunting knife and seeing how many they killed before they needed an assist, was not a technique she thought she’d see at the SGC. 

Or the sprint across the beach outside the castle walls in a dug-out channel, chased by a giant, very pissed off (de-venomed) Radscorpion, swiping its damn tail and claws at you as it followed at speed on eight legs. Although having done that one herself, as a demonstration of course, she could say it was a hell of a motivator to push faster and harder. She wasn’t certain how good her aim had been at the targets whizzing past, though Jack had been showing them off after, so she imagined she’d scored pretty high. All she had really cared about was that she’d left Preston’s ass in the dust time-wise. He had needed pulling out 50 seconds in. Sam got to a full 2 minutes before they’d hoisted her up by the rope around her, onto the castle walls, as it got within striking distance. She didn’t think Janet would approve of this cardio training routine though.

MacCready had agreed to tag along. Jack point blank refused to pay him and showed him the door, but had told him if he chipped in, he got room and board. It seemed a good enough deal, although Sam couldn’t help but notice that MacCready had stuck to her side whilst Jack’s little crack cadet squad did their thing; making their fairly brisk way up the coast to the closest point she could get a signal. The other reason MacCready was here, and one she hadn’t shared with Jack until after he had his little jealous fit earlier – just because she’d wanted to see that play out – was that the man knew where they could get a boat with some diving gear. That, and as a constant way of getting Jack to be a little more ‘attentive’ she supposed, smirking. Sam kind of liked the jealous look on him, but she wasn’t stupid enough to turn down help and nor was Jack. She and MacCready worked well enough as a sniper team. 

As the group sat down to take a break, Dukes, one of the original group of Minutemen, started whipping up his Mirelurk omelettes for them. Sam sat on a log beside their hired Merc, for once, taking in the fairly pleasant atmosphere and gently trying to probe the mysterious man beside her for a backstory.

“Do you even have a first name?” she pressed, grinning at him as he whittled something with his knife. She wasn’t sure what it would be, but he clearly had some skill at it.

“RJ.” He gave her eventually.

“Wow, mystery continues! I’ll stick with MacCready… or Mac.” She laughed gently at him as he tried to be all gruff, but she just got a good vibe off him. He had put himself in harm’s way a couple of times on the way here to have her back, which meant he’d earned a measure of trust.

“Yeah well, not all of us can afford so many damn letters, Samantha.” he snorted and gave her a cheeky smile that made her grin widen. She knew there was a human being under that armour somewhere.

“You handle a rifle well at range. That type of skill takes a lot of training.” she commented, seemingly off hand. Which wasn’t a lie, he was a damn good sniper. Not as good as her, but then, very few people she had met in the Airforce were, and certainly not out here.

“Or a lot of practice and a desire to stay alive.” he countered. Sam focused in on his whittling and realised he was making a rocket.

“Ah.” She nodded. “Anything in particular fuelling that desire to stay alive?” she enquired. MacCready looked up, giving her an assessing once over as if deciding whether she was worth taking the time to talk to.

“I was Mayor of a little town.” he shrugged. “I had a lot of people looking to me. I needed to get good. Do my part, keep us safe.” he admitted finally.

Sam frowned. That wasn’t what she had expected. Merc’s tended to be of a particular personality profile, but this guy was not responsibility or team shy by the sounds of it. “Mayor of where?” She had to ask, not that it would mean much to her, but Sam was curious.

He sighed, looking up at the distance. “Little town of Lamplight in the Capital Wasteland.” He admitted finally. “It’s a place run by kids who got no one else.”. Sam felt herself startle slightly at that. I mean sure, there had to be children, but she had yet to see many. A couple here and there in Diamond City; most she guessed kept out the way. Or hid, like poor ghoulified-Billy, just hopefully not so long. 

“Yeah I know how it sounds. I was ten when I took power off ‘the Princess’, which was what she called herself. So you can guess what kind of a leader she was. Real bad news that one, deserved more than a punch in the face let me tell ya. But we got a rule there; no adults allowed. Ever. No exceptions. So, when I turned 16 my time was up and I left, took my rifle and took my chances outside.”

Honestly, Sam had no response to that other than “Wow!” She shook her head, “That’s some story.” she admitted finally, not sure whether to feel pity or admiration. This poor man had been a child solider. 

MacCready was smiling at her. “Orphaned street urchin hardly holds a candle to a defrosted Super-soldier and her heroic General though does it?” Sam almost spat out the water she had just taken a gulp of at the sudden reference to ‘Super-soldiers ’, before she realised he had meant it in the metaphorical sense.

“How am I super?” she queried with a frown, wondering what the hell he’d picked up from the Minutemen. They seemed to have Jack way up on a pedestal, but she had been less inclined to find out where they ranked her, other than as a distraction. Or a Synth… she just couldn’t seem to shake that damn rumour. Jack had filled her in on the whole ‘Broken Mask – Mr Carter’ thing and she had point blank told him she wasn’t losing her name along with her entire fucking life and career out here. If people had a problem with her and whatever plastic parts they thought she had, they could damn well suck it up.

“You really need an ego stroke?” MacCready responded finally, having looked her up and down and scowled at her like she was being exceptionally dim. Sam held her hands up, backing out of that conversation and sensing a wall going back up. Perhaps he just wasn’t the type that liked feeling vulnerable. God knows if he had been on his own all his life, those walls must be impenetrable. Sam couldn’t imagine surviving alone out here as a child, let alone leading an entire town of them. Her estimation and respect for him went up about ten notches. As well as her fear, she remembered reading Lord of the Flies in college and wondered how ‘civilised’ he could really be. The thought of the Lost Boys also flittered in there somewhere and she shivered. Maybe she wouldn’t be trusting him to have her back entirely just yet.

There was a ringing silence between them with his little rebuke that she felt the urge to fill. “Ok, fair enough. Thank you for, you know, sharing.” They were thankfully interrupted by Dukes handing off a chunky thick fish-egg omelette, that she hoped to God he had remembered to season this time. Sam thanked him with a smile. Best never to upset the cook out here, even if she was sick to death of this particular meal.

They made it to the beach where the signal was coming a few hundred metres out; just east from the shore, having made a detour down to a little fishing inlet to retrieve the boat MacCready knew about. He hadn’t been optimistic that Sam would get the motor started. She had shrugged and handed him the oars, as plan B, with a grin that he’d accepted with a good-humoured huff. They hadn’t needed the oar. The engine, as with most technology out here, just needed a little TLC to get it back up and running again. She had to strip down one of the laser muskets, taking it from a cadet who’d pouted at her until she handed him her personal plasma pistol ‘to borrow’. She also cannibalised parts of the Assaultron droid they had stumbled across on the way through a Gunner controlled part of the docks. Other than that, it was almost too easy.

“Like I said. Super-soldier.” MacCready commented as Jack ambled up beside them, obviously hearing the last words. He smirked and clapped a hand down on MacCready’s shoulder, leaving it there for a moment. Sam knew it bothered the younger man from his tensing frame, which had been Jack’s intent of course.

“You can say that again.” Jack declared, grinning between them both and inserting himself into the conversation. He gave her an admiring once over and she tried not to blush as she looked away and back at the now purring engine. Sam wasn’t bullish enough not to recognise that maybe her talents for tech made her slightly more valuable than the average grunt out here. She just wasn’t sure she liked the comparison to a Super-soldier.

It was only a small little fisherman’s boat with one deck and a small covering over the helm. Apparently, it had belonged to someone up North in Far Harbour before it had suffered engine failure and washed up here. But that meant, realistically, it was only going to fit four of them at a push. Sam didn’t particularly want to carry any more load on that patched together engine. They took one of the more seasoned recruits that Jack seemed to be taking a particular shine to. A kid by the name of Foster… or Lieutenant Foster as Jack had dubbed him, after he had hit a spectacular bullseye from a deflection off a metal beam through that Assaultron’s chassis. It had been a pretty sweet shot, she’d conceded, acknowledging the lad’s field promotion. 

The signal beckoned and Sam glanced down at her PipBoy as they boarded the boat. They had two diving suits; the options were two go down and two wait, or two go down, one comes back with the spare suit for the others, if they found anything at all that was. She was just hoping that the sub was intact and hopefully in shallow water. If it wasn’t intact then she highly doubted there would be anything left of it. With her hopes not particularly high she let MacCready take the boat out. Jack had looked like he was itching to do it, something about him and fishing boats going together in her head. She nudged him as he sat next to her on the wooden bench.

“So, you got me to go fishing with you after all.” she teased and he grinned, giving her knee a squeeze. Their little argument about this trip over with, if not entirely forgotten for now. After all they were both here, they had a boat, that was further than she’d expected to get. She dropped her hand over his and slid their fingers together giving him an easy smile, this was what they did best, missions to find alien tech together.

“I got you onto a fishing boat…” he conceded, “we’ll save the fishing for when it’s something that might not bite back shall we?” He winked at her and sighed, propping his hands behind his head as he leant back casual as you like against the side, letting the gentle motion of the boat clearly soothe him back into a memory of happier times. 

“Besides,” his eyes opened onto her, twinkling with whatever thought had just amused him. “You and me on a sunbathed boat, empty lake, nothing around for miles… I wasn’t necessarily thinking about ‘fishing’ with you. Although I might have used my rod!” 

Sam let out a chuckle as the young Lieutenant practically choked, trying to be inconspicuous on the other side of the boat and not comment on that. She shot him a grin in sympathy, patting Jack’s hand before removing it from her knee. “The General likes to think he’s romantic.” she bit out sarcastically.

“Hey I’m plenty romantic.” He muttered.

“Really? Would Teal’c and Daniel have been invited to this little romantic get together on the dock?” she smirked at his look. “Or was it just you and your rod invited?” she smirked and his lips curved with an eye twinkle. 

“Maybe they wouldn’t have been invited for the best bits.” he muttered, getting up and moving to go secure a random bit of rope whilst she quietly laughed at him. Sam sighed, thinking of their team again. Just saying their names always seemed to hurt. She hoped that faded with time, because she’d quite like to talk about them more often. Keep them alive in her memory if nothing else. But given as he’d explained to her that it was every bit as painful for him and he wanted to have a very distinct, ‘there’ and ‘here’ in his mind, she had to respect that for now.

Her PipBoy beeped violently at her and she glanced down. “Woah!” She stood up, diving for MacCready and throwing the throttle into idle. “We’re here.” she replied and turned her head, hoping to hell that they would see something and ignoring the sudden pounding in her chest that she recognised as more than just excitement. 

“There.” Jack’s keen eyesight spotted it first. A metal platform submerged in water. Clearly the outer hull. “Guess we won’t be diving then.” he added, and Foster couldn’t help but look relieved Sam noted. Not that she was particularly keen on sticking that regulator in her mouth after god knows how long or how many others before her. 

She caught Jack’s eye and he gave her a small smile, just between the two of them, knowing as she did, that if this thing was still floating, then that bode well. His fingers brushed hers and gripped that little tighter as he helped her off the boat and onto the platform. But he didn’t let her go. His fingers tightened around her arm for a moment and his lips brushed her ear. She frowned up at him, confused as to his sudden shift in demeanour.

“Don’t get your hopes too high just yet Sam… we have no idea of the conditions inside.” he told her gently, as if afraid he’d burst her bubble, but not wanting her to be crushed with disappointment all the same, if this thing was a bust.

Sam shrugged. “I know. But it’s here and floating and we didn’t have to dive,” she pointed out with a half a smile, “that’s three things to be positive about already.” she told him flashing him a smile, and she allowed herself to feel cautiously optimistic. He pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Ok baby.” Jack murmured into her hair too quiet for anyone else to hear. “Just, be careful.” he pressed a lingering kiss there and stayed close as they examined the sub platform together. “But you know, last time I was in a sub it was full of those pesky little metallic spiders.” He grumbled and she appreciated him not calling them Replicators the ‘R’ word tended to be something of a trigger for her these days. She recalled that mission from Jack’s report only, she’d been off stuck saving the Asgard and not her team, but they’d got back just in the nick of time to beam them out. 

“I don’t really have fond memories of these floating tin cans.” Jack added eyeing the sub with great distrust, Sam noticed that poor Foster looked more nervous than ever at that and Sam elbowed Jack, his eyes went to hers and followed her look to the young Minuteman; widening in understanding. “Oh! but that was a Russian sub, I’m sure this is a totally different thing. Totally.” he added, clearing his throat and sounding unconvincing. Sam wished she had more to add, but her last memory of being in a sub was also almost dying in a Russian one; granted it was mini-one on a water planet populated by pissed off aliens. Instead she just smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way and gave the lad a pat on the shoulder. She suspected given the way their luck tended to go out here, that there was going to be something worse than replicators and water aliens waiting, so he’d need to get a grip and fast. Sam glanced at MacReady, he nodded, looking mostly bored, maybe curious, Sam smiled, at least her team pick was holding up. 

扬子-三十一 

”Yangtze.” The PipBoy on both their arms immediately translated the writing when held over it.

“So, a Chinese sub … that’s you bang on the money,” Jack squeezed her shoulder briefly. “We’ll have to chalk another one up to the Old Gal back in Sanctuary for this as well of course. You wait, I’ll get a letter next time a caravan comes our way from back home with her demanding payment in Psychojet or something equally awful.” he snorted, and Sam shook her head amused. He wasn’t wrong. “Why does it always feel like I’m some sort of a drug runner for my Grandma with her?” he muttered, followed up with his exasperated temple rub.

“Crazy old psychics aside, the pressure seals are all intact.” Sam pointed out. “I suggest we go see what the Glowing Sea did manage to throw back.” Lieutenant Foster gave her a confused look and quirked an eyebrow at him. “It’s just something she told me.” She admitted but he looked no less confused, in fact he looked like he wanted to tell her something but was nervous of a rebuke.. “What?” she pressed, and he looked more nervous if that was possible, was she really that intimidating?

“Erm, Ma’am, this isn’t the Glowing Sea…. I mean it probably does ‘glow’ you know with all the radiation, but out here everyone knows the area we call the Glowing Sea is South. By the Crater of Atom, where all the bombs hit… it’s on land.” Foster told her looking between the two of them, his eyes narrowing on Jack in confusion. Sam glanced up to see Jack giving the young Lieutenant a ‘shut it’ gesture, before he hastily dropped it on noticing her notice him.

Sam frowned. “Maybe I misinterpreted her.” 

Jack’s hand went to her back. “Who knows what that old bat is talking about half the time? She said there was a sub out in the sea…” he waved his arms indicating where they were. “Close enough, let’s not rag on the old broad. I couldn’t tell you what happened yesterday let alone tomorrow.” He grabbed his rifle. “Let’s go see if anyone’s home.”  
“Yes Sir.” Sam replied, disengaging the airlock and praying like hell that the nuclear reactor she suspected was powering this thing, wasn’t breached.

\---*---

Jack stood staring somewhat alarmed at the sight of the Chinese Captain Zao, still in his damn uniform, but a hell of a lot more Ghoul than he was when he started out from the Motherland.. Yeesh!, that was a look no one was pulling off. He honestly hadn’t expected to find anyone down here, but the Wasteland was fun like that.

Sam was thrilled and utterly in her element of course or would have been if the good Captain hadn’t started making demands of her the minute she displayed even the slightest hint of engineering skill. Apparently, he’d been stuck here floating, since he was ordered to release all of his nuclear payload onto the shore line they had just vacated. Apparently after there was some sort of engine failure. He confirmed to them that the landing zone had in fact been South, smack bang in the ‘Crater of Atom’ just like Lieutenant ‘Big Mouth’, as Jack was now thinking of Lt Foster had said. Sam needed this and he didn’t want anything raining on that parade. 

The good Captain had apparently carried out his order and nuked the shit out of Boston, leaving just one malfunctioned missile and a crippled nuclear reactor at the heart of his vessel. Both had managed to well and truly poison the crew and leave them rotted walking irradiated near-corpses. An ugly way to go, but then, they had helped to unleash the Apocalypse on the surface, so Jack was kind of okay with that. Karma and all. 200 years trapped in tin can rotting away from their own missiles felt kind of owed, even if they were just following orders. In his opinion being a good solider meant knowing when to ‘not’ follow the crazy ass ‘world-ending’ order. He had to send MacCready and Foster to cool off a bit after learning that cheery bit of news, sensing itchy trigger fingers, and Sam hadn’t yet declared that she was done with the good Captain’s expertise yet.

Captain Zao though, he seemed to be the only one of his crew to have kept his mind, through sheer force of will or desire to get home to his family, probably both. Personally, Jack thought it was just a guilty conscience not letting him find peace with what he’d pressed the damn button on. Not that he was the only sub that had launched, he’d made that clear. Just one of many on both sides, but that didn’t absolve him of anything in Jack’s eyes. In for a penny, in for a pound.

But the good ghoulified Captain had sent them on a damn series of errands to fix up the sub. Much like Billy, Zao seemed surprised, or at least unaware that it had been such a long time since the war. Or so Sam had hypothesised at him and he’d mostly watched her talk, admiring the glow of her hair in the fluorescents of the sub. 

“Jack, it’s just like we’ve observed with the feral ghouls. When they don’t have something to occupy their minds or bodies, or anything to sustain them physically, they fall into a state similar to hibernation. I doubt for him it has been 200 years. He probably rouses every now and again, potters about for a few hours then falls dormant. I imagine us coming on board woke him up again.” Sam reasoned. Who was he to argue, although he found the wholeidea disturbingly creepy. Well more so than the usual stuff that creeped him out here. That drifting state. Although he supposed it was better than being ‘present’ for 200 years of bits falling off you, and it sort of explained why he hadn’t left yet. A bit like dementia, he imagined.

Jack had gone along with the requests in the hopes that he and Sam were on the same page with this. Get the good Captain to show Sam how to fix up the sub, then ‘borrow’ it out from underneath him. He was surprised Sam needed the help, but then as she’d pointed out, she was Airforce, not Navy. Her ships weren’t designed to keep out a shit-tonne of water. That and it was pretty much unlike any nuclear reactor Sam had ever seen, or sub for that matter. Apparently, the Chinese tech had diversified even more than the American one on this Earth.

So, they’d gone and got the damn parts she’d needed back on the mainland. Had to fight through an ugly bunch of raiders in the Ironworks, calling themselves the Forged. They were a little like the Mad Max style nutters he’d been expecting to run into out here, only less polite and dumber than sin. They had tried to sacrifice them all to feed the Gods of the Forge by dumping them into the damn molten metal. ‘Slag’ their leader – whose name Jack had laughed his ass off about until someone had shut him up with a fist to his jaw that still smarted – was just smart enough to be an issue. In the end it had been MacCready that had got a good clean shot off at him as he’d been too busy playing ‘the floor is lava’. 

Jack assumed they’d get back and hijack the damn boat, except Sam had happily handed over the tech and got to work fixing it. Apparently, they needed to install the jammed nukes payload and make it compatible with the ship’s reactor. Jack had asked what he thought was the sensible question, as to exactly ‘why’ he hadn’t gone and taken care of this crew himself, as he’d glared at Zhao. He was getting the distinct feeling they were being played. Given, as in his own words, they left him well enough alone. Apparently, ghouls didn’t eat other ghouls… how nice for them. 

“I cannot, my crew might be monsters now, but they remain my family. I cannot kill them. Please I ask you, put them out of this misery.” Zhao implored them. Sam stepped forward and patted his arm gently. 

“We’ll take care of it.” she promised, despite Jack’s vigorous headshake. He wasn’t all that moved by that little speech. If he had been any sort of Captain he’d have taken responsibility for doing that his damn self. He was a goddamn coward as far as Jack was concerned. Sam had grabbed Jack by the arm, pressing her hand to his chest, and imploring him with her eyes to bite down on the comment she’d clearly known he wanted to make and had dragged him away.

That had been yet another lovely trip below decks to take care of the rest of the crew who weren’t so friendly; they hadn’t the poor judgement to retain their brains. The ghouls on the rest of the ship were mindless monsters just as Zhao had said and he’d ended them as quickly as they popped up. Jack, MacCready and Foster forming a tight circle around Sam whilst she worked to fix the damn reactor, as the whole ship started waking up. He had to admit, he was glad Sam had dragged the Merc along; he was a determined survivor, which was just what you needed against a pack of feral ghouls. 

The sound of the engines kicking back on had genuinely been one of his better moments out here. It meant, completely cleared or not, they could get out of the lower levels which were starting to make him claustrophobic; Jack had never liked subs.

“Is it fixed?” he’d pressed Sam gruffly taking her aside and keeping his eyes on the doorways. In these close quarters letting just one of these nasty little buggers within grabbing, or more importantly biting range, would be disastrous. 

“Well I got it to turn back on,” Sam sighed pointing out the damn obvious. “It’ll move, just not fast, or deep, it might get home one inch at a time..” she replied sounding almost sympathetic. Jack felt the familiar flash of anger – made worse by all the adrenalin pumping through his already on-edge body. He crowded Sam, taking her by her arm until they were out of earshot, trusting the two men at his back, for now, to keep anything else off them. He needed to talk some sense into her because, apparently, he and Sam weren’t just on different pages, she seemed to be reading an entirely bloody different book! She shook his tight grip off and glared mutinously at him.

“What the hell are you thinking?!” he snarled at her. “You don’t just hand him the damn keys back to the nuclear sub and let him run back home.” he growled, getting right up in Sam’s face, in an attempt to keep this a relatively private whispered conversation.

“Why not?” she hissed, looked at him genuinely confused, which only made him angrier. How could she be so smart and not see where he was going with this?

“Sam this asshole literally nuked Boston!” he snapped, his voice carrying as he watched Sam wince and glance over at the two men at their backs. They were trying to do the equivalent of standing there with their hands over their ears. “He’s the reason there’s a smouldering crater in the middle and everything we eat, drink, breath, is slowly killing us… or worse, turning us into a damn ghoul!” he snapped.

“Don’t you think he’s suffered enough for that?” she queried staring up at him, seeming to implore him to find a shred of compassion, which frankly, just wasn’t coming. In fact, Sam was aping Daniel wonderfully, which only pissed him off more. 

“I think the people on the surface of that damn irradiated wasteland are still suffering, so no I don’t think he’s suffered enough!” he growled. Sam dropped her head for a moment, before seeming to resolve herself to arguing, what he clearly thought of as an unwinnable position. Her eyes met his head on sparking with challenge and something else he wasn’t quite reading.

“Jack, he just wants to go home to see if his family, or anything of the country he was fighting for survived.” Once upon a time, an impassioned plea like that, particularly from her, might have gotten through but not now, not after all the shit he’d seen, and was living through out here.

“Yeah, that’s a no Sam! He doesn’t get a pass on this. No one up there got a pass!” Jack snarled. She recoiled at what he knew was pure fury on his face. Jack tried to curb it for her sake, taking in a shaking breath as he fisted his hand and slammed it into the metal bulkhead beside her; taking a moment to get his temper under control. 

She wanted logic, fine. “Tell me something, what if he gets back there and China’s fine?” he snapped, and her eyes widened at the tone he was taking, which bordered on downright aggressive. “What if he gets to go back to a life. You still think that would be justice?” he challenged. Surely, she could have nothing to come back against that with.

“He was just a soldier following orders… Sir.” She looked at him pointedly, “and we both know how that goes.” Ouch… that stung and yeah, damn it, he’d had the same thought. But it wasn’t making him any less angry at the asshole, for a decision he made at the height of this cold war no matter who’d ordered it. 

“I call bull!” Jack hissed. “You damn well know, an order like that, maybe you hesitate. Maybe no matter the soldier and the training, the human-being kicks in.” Jack told her firmly. Then he froze as Sam bowed her head for a moment and almost subconsciously her fingers brushed one after another over her forehead. Shit. No, no, no. He wanted to claw those words back, hell claw this conversation back and come at it from an entirely different spiel, or ignore it entirely.

But he’d walked himself right into that one he realised grimly as Sam raised her head and there was anguish there. Pure pain and guilt and fear, and so many terrible emotions that he hadn’t been able to read a moment ago, but were clear as day now. He felt a tightness in his chest and a plummeting sensation in his gut. It had been a while now since the ghost of Fifth raised its ugly head, not since Diamond City… and damn it! … he hadn’t meant to trigger it now, enclosed in a floating metal coffin. Especially not on the back of their recent row, but damn it why the hell did she have to push his buttons and why the hell couldn’t he just for once, shut the hell up!

“So, should I have hesitated Sir?” she whispered, her voice low, but strong, her eyes blazing at him. “Should I have disobeyed your direct order to betray Fifth? Gone with my humanity?” she accused directly and he winced. Jack couldn’t speak to this and he damn well shouldn’t have gone stomping over this still wounded ground between them, not right now, maybe not ever. “Do you know Jack, how many lives, hell how many worlds that decision, that order I obeyed like the good solider I am, might have ended? Or don’t they count because they weren’t Earth?” she said that last word barely as a hiss in an attempt to keep it from the prying ears as to their ‘non-native’ status he imagined. But he’d heard her just fine. And he got, it. Damn did he get it.

The force of her pain and anger had him reeling back slightly, there was venom in those words. He hadn’t gotten her to talk enough about Fifth, about what he had done to her, in any real depth other than what she had confessed around a campfire, and haltingly on the rooftop to him. As far as he was concerned, they certainly hadn’t resolved how she felt about his role specifically in all that. Apparently though, she did blame him, or at least in part for what had happened to her. He swiped his fingers over his suddenly dry mouth. Jesus Christ! 

He fell back on the same damn thing he’d said in his report. “Sam, I made a tactical decision, against an unknown enemy. I was desperate and I had my entire team to get out of there alive.” Given the ongoing torment it had caused her, he thought it sounded weak even to his own ears. 

“So that order wasn’t personal?” she accused. They were so close together in the cramped corridor that he could see the vein in her forehead pulsing, feel the heat of her skin, see the anger blistering off her. He frowned her question seeming to echo his thoughts, but he suspected she hadn’t gone down the same path, after all, he’d kept a tight lock on his feelings for her back then, and he couldn’t have known the impact it would have on her, but he was at a loss as to what other ‘personal feelings’ she was talking about.

“It wasn’t because Fifth and his brethren looked inside your head and saw your deepest fears, your worst moments, stripped you to your core and left you raw and exposed?” Her words cut him to the quick and Jack flinched. ‘Oh, that type of personal’, he realised grimly and sighed, he hadn’t considered that. Which he thought might have been the answer to her question after all, which made him feel marginally better about the decision. Although, he was self-aware enough to admit that there was a part of him that had hated it when those bastards had forced him to take a stroll through his memories of Charlie; when they’d picked and pulled apart his past and his pain like it was nothing for their entertainment …to doll out fresh judgement. But compared to what he’d gone through, the fact that Fifth had done it with the express purpose of inflicting pain and torment in her, made him shudder every time she reminded him. God knows what she had been made to re-live… to see. So no, he didn’t hate them personally at the time he’d made that call, but he couldn’t honestly say there wasn’t a part of him that had wanted them gone, known they had to be stopped no matter the cost. That he had legitmate fears at the time that they’d have gone on to Universal domination or something else equally awful.  
Trapping them in a time dilation field was about as humane is it got for him, when faced with a threat like that. But he supposed a small part of him had thought it a fitting punishment too, for the bastards that had made him relive his son’s death. So yeah… she was right, that guilt was on him too, because he honestly hadn’t cared what happened to them, so long as they were gone.

Sam looked away, taking his silence as agreement, clearly furious with him and he couldn’t do it; couldn’t let her put that distance between them, erect her walls again. “Sam.” he gasped, reaching out to cradle her face in his hands, disquieted to feel the slight tremor from her. “I’d give anything for that to have had a different outcome. For you not to have gone through what you did.” He brushed his lips over her forehead and the hidden wounds there, her blue slightly watery eyes locked on him. “But I can’t second guess my tactical decisions. You know that. There was no other way. You’d said it in your damn report; we were ants to them. God knows the destruction they’d have definitely gone onto cause if we hadn’t acted, finding a way to trap them at all was a small miracle, one only you were capable of making happen.”

She nodded, not meeting his eyes. “A bit like that magic replicator blaster you developed then huh… small miracles?” Sam replied, and he felt the flicker of fear from her, beneath the anger. Fear that this wasn’t real leaching back into her damaged psyche. He needed to pull her back from the precipice again he realised, with something close to panic rising swiftly in his chest. “Sam I think we both know that me coming up with a technological Hail Mary! wasn’t a small miracle… it was a big honking one.” Jack tried his best and most powerful weapon for diffusing Sam-style tension… self-depreciating humour. She seemed to relax a fraction, a bit of tension bleeding out of her as he gave her an out. But it wasn’t enough, he grasped onto that scrap of light though and ran with it. Distract, self-depreciate and flatter. It was his MO for girlfriends, wives, general’s and President’s it seemed and it had yet to fail him. 

“Do you know what else I found out whilst I was floating around up there inside an Asgard computer, when I was supposed to be building magical weapons?” he pressed and he saw the flicker of interest there. Distraction was a beautiful thing when applied correctly to a mind like Sam’s. 

“How about why they didn’t name a ship after you?” Jack asked, sparking her curiosity. Sam’s eyes narrowed for a moment and he could almost see, clear as day, the annoyance flare again. He had honestly meant to mention it before, but Sam had a big enough head as it was sometimes. She couldn’t honestly think the Asgard would name a ship ‘The Daniel Jackson’ or ‘The O’Neill’ and not honour the woman who had actually saved their collective assess multiple times?

“They named an entire nebula after you, the Samantha Majora and a capital City. Carter’s very popular this time of year I hear.” he told her grinning at her proudly. Sam smiled, finally, her proud little one that he adored; he loved all her smiles but that one meant a lot, and that he could make it happen, meant even more. “Ships come and go, or you know, get blown up by jealous 2ICs,” he pouted, reminding her what she’d done to the warship O’Neill, “but nebula’s…? You better believe they’re there to stay!” He declared and she blushed, ducking her head a little. But the majority of the anger and sudden terror she’d been sensing at the sudden loss of reality bled out of her expression and she sighed. Letting Jack press his forehead against hers, drawing closer until their chests were touching. “Sam, talk to me baby. Use small words, but please just explain to me what the hell we came out here for, if it wasn’t to get our hands on a sub – a sub you’ve literally just got working?” Jack stroked his thumb over her cheeks, enjoying the way she nuzzled into them, softening into him. He cherished the fact that unlike when they might have fought in the past back when he was just her CO, he was allowed to try and resolve their fights now with a little tenderness. 

Sam’s eyes lifted and the depth of pain in them was breathtakingly heart-breaking. “Ok, I suppose I haven’t explained.” she conceded. “But you need to understand that this isn’t some misplaced sense of honour or pity, or whatever you think it is. It’s a simple fact Jack that this sub is useless to us!” She declared and the words slapped into him with ringing silence. ‘Oh.’ So perhaps she wasn’t just upset with his attitude towards the Captain and what they had found down here, or even what the damn ghoul had done to Boston. This was a different kind of pain and anger altogether and he’d somehow missed it. Again.

Sam was devasted, broken, by the realisation that this latest hope had been dashed. The tremor in her that he’d sensed before had actually become a full body tremble and he pulled her to him, trying to stop it however he could. God damn it! He needed Daniel as a buffer between his mouth and his brain, because honestly, he was screwing this all up. No wonder Sara had called him an ‘insensitive jerk, completely out of touch with his and anyone else’s emotions.’ Not their best moment granted, but he thought it probably rung true here.

Her voice broke, “The subs barely operating at any thrust. It’s moving yes, but it’s going to take him decades to limp home, if it even holds out that long. Zao wasn’t an engineer, he can’t fix it if it breaks again.” She buried her head in his chest and his hands slipped naturally around her waist holding her close, trying to make up for the fact that his mouth had dug him into a damn fine hole. “I can’t fix the radiation leak.” she added with a hitch and he heard the way the tears were waiting behind her voice. “Not from the nuke or the damn reactor, not without getting this thing out the water. We’d be either dead or ghouls if we attempted to use it.” she admitted finally and started to cry; her shoulders shaking silently, his shirt starting to dampen under the steady stream of tears. Jack held her whilst she broke and finally it seemed, admitted defeat. 

“We’re not going home Jack. This was our last shot and its as useless as everything else in this world!” Sam’s voice broke and shook over the heart-breaking statement and damn if it didn’t hit home for him as well. 

This was it. Life in the Wastes was it for them. But at least it was a life with Sam. Guilt lashed him for that last thought, she didn’t need to hear that right now.

“Hey, hey.” He tried to soothe but she was beyond despair he realised grimly, and he’d have given anything to take back the last few moments, his reaction, anything to get himself a damn clue faster. He cradled her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks and trying to get her to focus on something other than that awful cracking feeling he knew all too well inside her chest. “I’m here, we’re alive and that’s a damn miracle too. I love you Sam, and that is something that not even this place can break. We’re going to be okay. Okay?” he promised.

Sam nodded, tears spilling down her reddening cheeks and he was struck again by how she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She turned her head slightly, pressing a kiss to the palm of the hand resting on her cheek, but her expression and whole demeanour looked crumpled. Her watery eyes opened onto him and he tried not to notice how that light, that damn spark she usually had in the blue depths, seemed just that little bit dimmer. He kissed her softly, tenderly; she was everything to him, he told her in that kiss. Told her how it broke him too that they couldn’t go back. But that it could still be beautiful between them, if they just embraced truly what they could have out here. He only hoped the message got through. Because seeing her shatter like this again was starting to break down his hard-won walls and he couldn’t let that happen, he needed to hold it together for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MacCready is an old character from Fallout 3 (as a child Mayor), and Fallout 4 – I always liked him, very no nonsense. Jack had a buddy in Preston figured Sam could do with a go-to.  
> The Asgard bit I added because that was so needed, they might not have genders but I’d found their lack of acknowledgement of Sam literally saving their assess very sexist (that we know of, of course, they hadn’t exactly told the others they’d named stuff after them, they just happened to come across it).


	18. School's Out

The raucous sounds of laughter rang through the Castle and Jack grinned, lining up the shot on the makeshift bowling alley he’d constructed on the castle ramparts. The long strip of metal they had lain out, and shined up with some oil, worked well enough. He slipped his fingers into the bowling ball; one of two he’d acquired from an old bowling alley where an insane bot had tried to charge him 5000 caps for a game, on a busted lane. Jack waited impatiently for one of the young recruits to line up the league pins again. He was making it his mission to reintroduce at least golf or bowling, because every world needed that in their lives. 

Finally positioning the last pin, she gave him a thumbs up, stepping back to admire her work, as he took a few long strides forward and released the ball in a smooth movement; one that he was trying, with some success, to teach the others. They had smashed a few pins to smithereens because they hadn’t got the art of gliding the damn ball into them. He waited for that moment as the pins toppled like dominoes and he let out a hoot. “STRIKE!” Jack declared, retrieving his bottle of whiskey, wishing soundly for a cold damn beer, as he bumped his fist against the offered ones from the group that were celebrating around him. This had been one of his better ideas he thought, feeling mildly proud of it.  
Jack was just celebrating his own genius when he spotted Sam, her blonde head whipping back inside the tower stairs. He hesitated, considering going after her; the noise they’d been making must have reached the armoury to draw her out of her new ‘lab space’. She’d been withdrawn like this for weeks now, after the damn disaster that was that Sub. Jack sighed, watching the place where she wasn’t and took another swig of his whiskey, feeling the burn and the tingle in his lips that said he’d had one too many already. Screw it. He darted after her, not surprised when he caught up with her at the bottom of the steps, as she seemed to move on autopilot at the moment. His fingers wrapped around her arm and she glanced back at him, surprised.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to disturb you.” she replied. He didn’t release her arm, just stared at her and held out the whiskey.

“Wanna drink?” he offered. Sam grimaced, it wasn’t her drink he knew. “I have rum up there… maybe even some Bobrov’s Best Moonshine?” he offered instead, trying for light hearted despite the fact that his fingers curled tighter around her arm. He wanted her upstairs with them, having a little fun. “Apparently Vadim’s been sticking it in the supply run from Diamond City with your name on it, since he heard you were the one on the other end of the line.” he teased and her lips twitched a fraction upwards, which was progress.

“I’m okay, thanks. I’m just going to go to bed.” She indicated their room down the hall and he narrowed his eyes as she attempted to walk away. His fingers dug into her arm.

“Stop it.” he warned her and she frowned. “Stop avoiding. Your upset, I get that. So, come and play a round or two?”. He tried to lighten his tone, “Look you’d be doing us a favour. The other team need someone who knows which way up to hold the damn ball. It’ll be fun.” he promised.

She glanced at her arm still in his grip and he sighed, releasing her, and feeling a creeping despair and helplessness replace the anger. He thought he’d preferred anger. “Sam baby, please… I hate seeing you like this.” he tried one more time, wanting to wrap his arms around her, but she had been damn evasive recently, especially with him. He’d even found her sleeping next to her lab bench on a couple of nights. She hadn’t shaken off that damn Chinese Sub disappointment and he wasn’t sure how else to reach her, or if he even should. Coming to accept this place was something that she could only do on her own. He couldn’t force it and it seemed with her it was always one step forward, ten steps back. Honestly, Jack had thought he was stubborn, but Sam was making him redefine the damn word. If this was what she’d been like when he’d been stuck in Edora, or on that damn moon, he was starting to have some real sympathy for the rest of his team and the base. Although he supposed he was no better. He hadn’t exactly been a picture of mental health; drinking and distraction weren’t necessarily healthier coping mechanisms than her avoidance. He just didn’t like that her strategy included avoiding him.

Sam’s lips pursed as she shook her head and turned her back on him to walk away, again; hands jammed in her long leather jacket. Jack curled his fist around the neck of his whiskey bottle. He wasn’t sure if she was angry that he was able to cut loose and have fun, or if it was because he was having fun without her. Jack was starting to suspect that she wanted him to join her pity party, but he just couldn’t; this hadn’t spun him out the way it had her. Hell, he knew what the bottom of the barrel looked like, he’d stared down it enough in the dark times after Charlie. This wasn’t that, at least not for him. 

Jack ran his hand through his hair roughly. He needed to make a choice here; he’d been letting her work her way through this, giving her space and time, but clearly passivity wasn’t working. Sam wasn’t just going to snap herself out of this funk. It had been almost a month since they’d watched that damn Sub limp away back out to sea. If anything, she seemed worse now than those first few days when he’d barely managed to get her out of bed. 

He wished he had more of an idea of how to be with her, of what she wanted, from life out here or from him. Sam had commented more than once that he always seemed to know without her needing to say, but he was flying blind here; it was luck mostly. Although he liked to think he’d learnt to read her in the years they had spent together, there was a difference to being able to read her in the field and personally. What Jack was discovering was that Sam was more complicated and damn contradictory than he’d ever imagined… and he’d imagined pretty hard. There seemed to be this mass of conflicting feelings and impulses inside of her; he had no idea if it was just this place and the situation they were in, or if this was just her. 

Loving her wasn’t dull though, so there was that. But he’d have given anything to have known what it was like to be with her in a normal setting …what they would have been like. Because Jack realised that he’d changed in response to being out here too. He just wasn’t sure how much, or in what ways, except for when he was around her, then the differences became more apparent. Being allowed to be in love was like that he supposed. Even if right now that sucked a little, her pain was his pain and all that. It seemed like out here they simultaneously seemed to bring out both the best and worst in each other. 

Jack had always been a fairly confident guy; he’d dated enough to know he was usually capable of doing and saying the right things. But Sam… damn it, with her, his masks fell away. Ones he wasn’t even aware he’d been wearing. Jack wanted to know if that was a reaction to being out here, or if that was just Sam. Hell! He’d never had the urge to pin anyone down and have them call him ‘Sir’ before her. A part of him wondered if that was just because of the complete collapse of authority in their lives, the loss of order and control. Or had he always wanted that from a woman and never dared or never found a woman that would reciprocate. Sara would never have let him; she’d have been terrified of that side of him. 

He took another mouthful of whiskey. Sam was making him nuts. Who was he kidding?... she’d always made him nuts! It was just more obvious now. Her blonde head whipped around a corner as she fled from him and he put on a burst of speed. He caught up to her again and slipped his arms around her waist, stopping her from running this time and she gasped in surprise as he pulled her swiftly back into a stone alcove. The old castle was full of dark little nooks that just about fit two people, so long as they were pressed ‘real’ close. Her back hit the stone wall and she inhaled sharply in clear surprise as he pressed into her. At least that was a reaction, he reasoned.

Her mouth opened to either protest, or shout at him, he wasn’t sure which, so he pressed his finger over her lips. Surprised, Sam stopped and her breath hitched. “You don’t have to talk.” he told her. “I’m not going to try and convince you to cheer up. Or to come bowl, or train or whatever the hell else I’ve been trying to get you to join in for weeks now. I’m just going to make you feel good… okay?” he offered. “Think of it as stress relief.” he added removing his finger from her lips. She stared up at him and for the first time in a long time Jack hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on behind her troubled eyes. 

“Okay.” she rasped and he let out a sigh that was almost relief and, very cautious of the dangerous and slightly pissed off woman he’d just cornered, he sunk down onto his ancient knees, ignoring the popping sound with a wince as he hit the stone floor.

Sam’s eyes went wide and she let out a soft sound as he reached for her hips. His lips quirked as she gasped when he ran his finger gently across her crotch. Sex had been off the table for a while too and whilst Jack’s instinct was to sink into her body and remind her that he was most definitely in this with her, he sensed that wasn’t something she’d accept right now. Besides this wasn’t about him and if he was honest this worked just fine for him right now too; touching her was its own form of sex. He worked deftly on her belt before she had a chance to think on it too deeply and back out. She needed this, needed something, a connection or hormone boost. He just wanted to see her smile again; he’d settle for seeing her relax for a moment. Jack slowly slid the thin black cargo pants she had on down, taking care to stroke her thighs gently as he went. He wished like hell they were back in that little shack in Diamond City, with her in that pretty blue dress; he’d carefully stored that in their trunk for one hopeful day. He got the pants down around her ankles and considered that good enough.

He looked up at her from his position. Jack had to be sure she was with him on this; the last thing he wanted to do was push her further away. Sam stared back at him, her teeth worrying her lip. There was a desperation in her eyes that screamed at him to make the pain go away, even for a little while. He could do that, he’d promised her that much. She watched him as he lowered his head, keeping his own eyes fixed on her face. Then he pressed his mouth to her and licked long hard swipe against her clit. Her hands shot out and she caught herself on the stone walls either side of them; her eyes darting once to the hallway they’d come from, clearly deciding, as he had, that no one was going to be looking in here on a dark night. Not that he cared. A shadow of light cast in from the glassless slitted window behind her, , barely illuminating them; just the flash of her golden hair haloed around her. 

Jack slid his hands around her waist and slotted his face more firmly against her, nuzzling the soft thatch of hair and letting his hands smooth over her ass. She shuddered at the feel of his tongue on her again and he watched what he could see of her face through the shadows, until her eyes closed and her head fell back slightly; her body surrendering to him. They didn’t talk. He just quietly brought her to an orgasm which spilled into his mouth and he savoured. Then he did it again; his hands firm on her ass, keeping her against him and ignoring the pain in his knees as he felt her shudder violently. Her second orgasm was slower but more powerful and he felt her legs trembling as she clutched the back of his head, holding him there for a moment as she let out the softest of sounds. The last of it rippled through her and into him, and he kept her there as long as he could. Sam’s hands fell away from his head and he sighed, pressing a kiss to her thigh as he slowly pulled her pants back up. Jack slotted them around her hips with care, before rising up on his aching knees until he was stood in front of her, breathing heavily, ignoring with everything in him the ache in his balls. 

Sam was staring quietly at him. He leant in and kissed her on the cheek, pushing the long strand of hair that had fallen forward behind her ear and brushing her cheek with his thumb, a faint hint of colour there the only evidence of his efforts. They stayed that way for a moment, hyper aware of each other as he fought the urge to kiss her, so close their noses were almost brushing. Jack just needed her to know he was here for her. “I’m not going anywhere Sam. I’ll be right here when you want to start living again.”

Then he was gone. Turning away from her and the ache in his chest, as he swept up his whiskey bottle from where he’d left it and downed a stinging mouthful; regretting for a moment that it washed the taste of her from his lips… but it was necessary, or he’d be back in there in a heartbeat. Adjusting himself and willing his painful erection down, he took another burning mouthful of whiskey. Sam would come back from this, he was certain, she just needed time. In the meantime, he’d live for them both.

\---*---

“This is a Minutemen Announcement, Libertallia has fallen!” 

Sam’s head shot up as she listened to the radio broadcast and glanced at her PipBoy. Jack and his team had gone out that way on a simple supply run to a settlement nearby. He wouldn’t?... Would he? Sam darted out of the armoury which had become her new lab space; where she could tinker with machines and weapons to her hearts content. Most importantly she could shut out the rest of the damn world if she wanted to! 

Jack had been the picture of patience with her, which shouldn’t have surprised her. He always had shown immense restraint when it came to them. Food got delivered to her door; every now and again a new potential ‘lab assistant’ was wheeled in to try and crack her. Since noting her habit of falling asleep with her work down here, he had also taken to retrieving her. She kept waking up in their bed, whether she remembered getting there or not. Jack’s arms wrapped around her, his warmth reminding her that despite her dark thoughts, she was very much alive. But he never once tried to drag her out or shake her back into anything approaching a life out here; accepting her decision to retreat and wallow. 

That one time when she’d let him touch her, trying to wake her from her stupor, had been both touching and desperately sad; to see the impact she was having on him, and yet not even that had shaken her loose. The momentary bliss she had found in his touch again had been a welcome distraction, even if it had ultimately served as a painful reminder that without this place, he’d never have touched her. She was grieving again, Sam realised. The hope that had flared foolishly in her chest on finding that Sub had turned into despair and she couldn’t seem to shake it, not even for Jack. 

But on hearing that radio broadcast, for the first time in a while Sam felt something else beating sharply in her chest. Panic. Real and raw and flooding her with adrenalin, as she darted out of the armoury and stalked along the stone corridors. She didn’t acknowledge the Minutemen she passed on the way to the outside; ignoring their querying looks to see her out and about or moving anywhere with purpose. Her feet hit the dirt of the castle grounds, she blinked in the sudden light, realising she’d been cooped up too long. Sam strode across to the radio station where Captain Duke’s was sat, his Stetson on the table beside him as he fiddled with the dials. Her sudden appearance beside him startled him and he glanced up at her in clear surprise.

“Colonel!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry you startled me. What can I do for you?”

“Tell me that wasn’t the General’s group at Libertallia?” she snapped and Duke’s grimaced, which was confirmation enough.

“It wasn’t planned.” Duke’s held up his hands in a gesture she suspected he hoped she’d recognise as surrender, as she leant in, hands on the table, crowding him; her expression speaking volumes. “Apparently the settlement they went out there to help had been raided; bunch of captives were being held up at Libertallia. The General made the decision to take it out.” he informed her firmly, standing a little straighter; after all Jack was the General, his decisions were final around here.

Sam grit her teeth. It wasn’t a decision he’d spoken to her about; hell, she’d barely known he was going out to a settlement. But then she supposed that was her fault too. Her head and been so far up her own ass this last month, she hadn’t noticed or cared enough that Jack was quietly breaking too. She’d seen it, the drinking, the smoking, the fun little ‘distractions’ of his; anything to not think about the fact that they were unequivocally stuck here. 

Granted she’d taken this worse, but he wasn’t unaffected. Jack had promised her constantly that they were in this together, but somehow she’d been the one to abandon him. She’d deliberately withdrawn from him, from the one thing out here that stood in sharp relief to the despair. But then conversely that was why she’d avoided him. After all how could she keep wallowing in despair, when she finally had the man she loved? That had led her to a whole host of confusing and guilt-ridden feelings that she was still trying to sort through.

But now Jack had run off to a damn ‘Pirate City’. A floating construction of wrecked boats and pontoons North of here, in the harbour. A place she knew he’d been waiting for a reason to attack since he’d first been made aware of them. Its slowly drifting nature had made an artillery strike impossible, and wasteful. She knew because she’d been there when he’d dismissed the suggestion from Major Shaw. The first of many suggestions from the good Major, made in Sam’s self-imposed absence from Minutemen Command; filling the power vacuum. Sam ducked her head, drawing in a shaking breath and trying not to look as rattled as she felt. Duke’s didn’t need to see that.

“So given the announcement, I take it the mission was successful?” she grit out, her white knuckled grip on the table drawing Duke’s eyes for a moment and she watched him watching her nervously. There was something he was holding back. She felt her eye twitch; she’d been around enough soldiers giving a debrief to know that she was about to be told it had gone sideways.

“Yes Ma’am.” he replied sharply. “The captives, what were left of them, have been freed. The General’s team have sunk the structure to stop anyone else getting any ideas about using it.” Sam waited with bated breath for the ‘but’ she sensed.

“Casualties?” she pressed and Duke’s winced. “Lieutenant Foster was killed Ma’am.” he paused, and Sam read the tension in his frame. The news that Jack’s protégé had been killed was a hollow blow inside her and she felt her heart beat falter. That poor boy. Oh God, what about Jack?! 

“The report I got said the General went down, the Lieutenant dived in front, took the rest of fire.”

Sam felt her heart stutter, ‘Jack went down’, “Jack got shot?” she asked, her voice sounding oddly flat to her own ears.

Duke’s stood and raised a hand to her arm in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. She folded her arms and stepped back glaring at him, asking him to get on with it. Duke’s lips thinned. “He took a shot in the leg. A through and through with a 10mm, but he’ll be fine. We’ve sent a field medic out to them. Might delay their return by a week though. They’ll keep him comfortable until they get there. Apparently they ran out of stimpaks, used them all on the captive settlers. He’s stable, just not quite up to the walk back.” Duke’s smiled, trying to be reassuring but a pit of white-hot anger and fear was coiling inside of Sam as she stared at him hard; the smile sliding off his face.  
Sam bit the inside of her cheek. She was going to kill Jack if he did survive; she had no reason to doubt it. Duke’s however seemed to read her expression just fine. 

“That’ll be all Captain.” she told him sharply because she didn’t trust herself to say anything else, and he took that as the dismissal it was. Sam sat in his spot and glanced down at her PipBoy; there weren’t any messages. Fuck. How in the hell had she managed to screw this up so badly that Jack had taken a mission without her, and had gone and gotten himself hurt? She felt the distance between them keenly and her stomach rolled with nausea. She punched in a few keys, sending him a brief message, not certain he’d look, if he even had his PipBoy with him. After all, he wasn’t a big fan of having it strapped to his wrist. He’d complained it was like wearing a neon sign that said to everyone he was a vault dweller, come take a shot. 

‘We need to talk. Don’t you dare die on me.’ 

Sam hesitated. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but her fingers were shaking; she stared at the screen, the message blinking back at her. She added an X ‘kiss’ and hit send, feeling like a coward as she did it. If he was pulling away from her, however justifiably, she didn’t want to put that pressure on him right now. This was her mess to fix after all.  


48 hours later they received a brief radio update; the medic had reached them, and the General was ‘fine’. Apparently, they’d experienced a bit of blow back from some local raider groups wanting to pick the ‘carcass’ of Libertallia, but they expected to deal with that quickly and head back within the week. The relief Sam felt was sharp and somehow painful. She’d run from the Castle, straight out to the beach and collapsed onto the lapping shore, throwing up violently. The surf washing away the evidence of her newest failure. She knelt there, wiping the back of her mouth with a trembling hand and staring grimly at her miserable reflection. How much more terror could her heart take before it gave up on her entirely?

Sam didn’t know if she was angry or happy right now. All she knew was that she had spent most the night sobbing after receiving that information. Curled up in the bed they shared, holding his shirt tucked to her chest. The lingering scent of him as painful as it had been comforting. She couldn’t lose him and she couldn’t hide away from feeling it all; the pain, the terror, the grief, her love, and the inexplicable joy she felt with him despite it all.

She’d found Jack’s damn PipBoy under their bed that morning and cussed him silently, debating whether to delete her message that sat there blinking away unopened. She decided to leave it. Maybe her desperate plea might clue him into how worried she’d been. After that she’d taken to manning the radio station, waiting for a call that she was starting to suspect wouldn’t come. After all what was he going to say over an unsecured line? He was also probably genuinely worried about what she might say or do; after all she hadn’t been in the best mindest when they had parted. 

Sam got the distinct impression that Duke’s hadn’t been supposed to say anything to her about it at all; assuming she’d be too busy ‘hiding’ away to hear their call about Libertallia. She couldn’t blame them; it was exactly what she’d been doing for weeks now. No, Jack would wait. He would walk his stubborn way back and they’d do their talking like they always did; face to face or probably in bed. She slammed her hand down onto the table in frustration, knocking the dial so it de-tuned. Sam huffed in irritation; she’d have to retune it to the Minutemen station now. 

As she glared balefully at the dial, the crackling static gave way for a minute and she moved the dial a fraction. That’s when she heard it. The faint but clear sounds of a voice. Sam checked the frequency and Duke’s notes, comparing them to her own. It was an old military frequency, not many settlers used it. But someone was definitely trying now. Sam listened in close, fiddling with the dial until she could clear it up. There was a lot of static but she started to make something out. A distress call.  


“need assistance. ‘static’. Savage attacks….’static’. Something really weird, ghouls. ‘static’. Pink! ‘static’… anyone help?.”

Sam grimaced. Of course the useful information about ‘where’ they were had been lost in the hiss of static, but she thought she got the gist; ‘ghouls and help’. Sam hit the transmitter and tried to clean up the frequency some more to broadcast. “This is Colonel Carter of the Minutemen. We hear you. Please relay your position. Repeat. Relay your position.” she spoke as clearly as she could. Nothing came back. She tried again. Finally, the radio crackled.

“…nk God. ‘static’. Suffolk County. ‘static’. School. ‘static’. They’re damn Pink!” the voice exclaimed, sounding truly freaked out.

Sam raised an eyebrow, none the wiser as to what the hell was happening out there or who was sending it. But she had a direction at least. She studied the map they’d built up, which listed all the known settlements. Some were best guesses obviously. Others had been named by the Minutemen, and the rest took their names from old Boston landmarks. She traced the old-world map against the Wasteland map until she found Suffolk County. 

There was indeed a school marked on the map. There was also something else and she looked at the two maps together for a moment; the Minutemen’s and the Old Boston one. Her fingers reaching for the dial and moving to the lower end of the frequency; a hunch forming in her gut and prickling away in the back of her mind. This was a weird frequency; she shouldn’t be able to hear it out here. Not unless it was somehow getting a boost from somewhere. She glanced down at her PipBoy and with a bit of jerry-rigging got it to link the two together until she got a lock.

She frowned down at her PipBoy which confirmed it, as the signal registered in her frequency logs. Vault-Tec’s emergency broadcast beacon. There was a Vault-Tec signal coming from the same location as the school, carrying the military signal out past its normal range. She suspected that had been the purpose, but why would Vault-Tec want to mask their signal beneath a military one?

Sam pulled out the Minutemen logs, which held a list of all the distress calls and activity they had recorded, based on each location, and zeroed in on Suffolk County. Her finger tapped over the scrawled words as she absorbed the implication, but it was clear enough. Granted the span of time made it harder to notice, but the settlements around Suffolk County had more than their fair share of feral Ghoul problems. More than one settlement out that way had fallen victim to them according to the Minutemen’s records. And it had been going on for some time; long before they’d gotten to the Castle. 

Sam sat back in the chair, considering her options. She was presently the ranking officer in the Castle, even if she rarely took an active role in their activities. This was Jack’s thing after all, but every man and woman here respected her as a soldier and a ‘brain’. She had more than proved her worth, if not her willingness to the cause. ‘Shit.’ This was exactly what Jack had done. He had sat here and listened to a cry for help over the wire, and not been able to ignore it. Could she really blame him for that? There was a world of pain and desperation out there, was it so bad to want to go and make a difference? Save one… then another, and another… and maybe save yourself. 

Sam stood, pushing back her chair and approaching the only person she respected enough to help her make a call. The woman who had been doing Sam’s job out here for the last month, if she was honest. Major Ronnie Shaw was a Minutemen Vet who’d served with the group through no less than two Generals and had been instrumental in helping Sam get the mortars set up on the castle turrets. The older woman in the severe black beret and short cropped brown hair was stood up on the ramparts overlooking the entrance to the Castle. On watch and on duty, as always; her hands behind her back, as she surveyed the grounds in a perfect military posture. Sam understood a woman like this, or at least she used to. 

“Colonel.” Shaw came to attention and nodded firmly at her. “I wasn’t expecting to see you up here.” A not too subtle dig that Sam didn’t do the ‘grunt’ work; too buried in her lab and her gadgets for Shaw’s liking probably, and more lately, in her ‘grief’ or moping as she’d heard from some of the more irritable corners. Although the good Major had at least been more than happy to take instruction from Sam on the range, which she had actually almost found herself enjoying, some weeks ago. Target practice had always been a good way of centring herself.

“What can I do for you?” Shaw pressed when Sam didn’t speak but came to stand beside her, staring down at the castle grounds and the setup of turrets and traps she’d been instrumental in constructing. It seemed setting up settlement defensive lines was her particular ‘super-power’ out here, or so MacCready had told her, offering the titbit into his previous offhand comment. Apparently she’d given him all sorts of ideas should he find himself at Little Lamplight again. Given he’d once been responsible for the protection and barrier of one of the Wastelands most secure settlements – from what she’d heard literally ‘no-one’ got in to that town, unless the kids wanted it – she was taking that as the compliment he’d intended.

“There’s a distress signal that needs investigating. Some unusual behaviour by the sounds of it, down in Suffolk County.” Sam turned and looked at the woman, who was now examining her cautiously. As if getting a good look at her for the first time in weeks and trying to assess if she was really ‘back’.

“Very well, I’ll assemble a team.” Shaw replied eventually. Sam shook her head. 

“I’ll be leading them.” she informed her, her tone brooking no question. It was about time she got involved.

“Is that wise Ma’am?,” Shaw spoke up, “what with the General out of action up North for a few more days, you are in command here.” she pointed out none to bluntly and Sam nodded, hearing the clear chastisement there, in what the Major clearly saw as her dereliction of her duties.

Sam sighed, biting this particularly bullet. “I think we both know Major, that my Command here is largely figurative. You have been keeping the rotations and the training drills going, as have the Squad Captains. You don’t need me right now.” Shaw’s expression looked pinched and Sam sighed. This was one of the differences out here; Shaw might think she was military but she hadn’t learnt the fine art of not questioning a superior officer, or a direct order. 

“Never-the-less Ma’am, you are the Second. The last thing we need right now is you out of commission too.” Ronnie barked, and Sam bristled, feeling her spine straighten and her eyes narrow.

“I’m going Major.” she snapped. “This isn’t a discussion. Your orders are to assemble a team to assist me.” Shaw stiffened and nodded once sharply. “I want two of your least jittery to accompany me, as it’s a ghoul nest,” Shaw took that in without a flicker of expression. “Oh, and I’ll be taking MacCready with me.” Sam added as an afterthought. Next to Preston, who was inevitably with Jack, MacCready was the only other person she trusted to have her back out here. Particularly since he’d revealed to her that his reason for needing cash was to send medical supplies to his kid. 

The poor boy was sick from some mystery disease. He was back home in the Capital Wastelands, which she reasoned was once Washington DC, waiting for his dad to come home and save him. ‘Robert’ – he’d finally told her his real name – had confided in her on the way back from that damn Sub, when she’d barely been in a fit state to listen. Sam had clung to the distraction of his words like a lifeline. MacCready’s son had fallen sick in the same deadly attack that had left him watching his poor wife get ripped apart by feral ghouls; leaving him a single parent. 

He was obviously desperate to save his son, even if he had to wander the Wastelands endlessly in search of a cure. Sadly, her suggestion of going to Curie for help hadn’t yielded much result. Without a blood sample there wasn’t a lot the former Nanny-bot turned Wasteland medic could do. Word had it that whatever had affected his son, had been caught from the ghouls. Which was part of the reason she was hoping he’d be willing to help her now; to prevent what had happened to his son from befalling some other poor settlers.  
She approached him now as he sat in the canteen at a rickety metal table on his own, he’d never been all that sociable; sliding into a seat opposite him.

“Well, well. She emerges from her cave.” MacCready grinned at her and she smiled thinly, stealing the corn bread off his plate and biting down on it; it was definitely improving, she noted.

“I need a favour.” she said, he’d always been a man that appreciated straight talking.

“Ah.” he nodded and spooned a mouthful of whatever the bowl he was eating was. Sam thought she spotted something noodle-esque floating in there. “And might I ask if there’s some incentive in this for me?” he asked, giving her a charming smile that she wasn’t fooled by. She could play at this game too; she slid a magazine towards him, her fingers resting on it.

“I hear you’re a Grognak fan?” MacCready’s eyes perked up and he looked down at the magazine under her fingers. Wary, he sat back, trying not to look too eager. Sam grinned at him; she’d already got him and she knew it. He was apparently a mouthy drunk and the Castle literally had ears.

“Maybe, but I’m not a cheap dancing partner.” he shrugged. 

Sam flipped the magazine over. “Special addition.” Sam told him feeling smug, “I hear this is the one where Matadonald and Skullpocalypse teamed up against Grognak.” She had no idea what the hell she was saying, but Jack had been suitably excited by it when he’d found it.  
His eyes widened and his fingers went still on the table. It seemed she had his attention.

“Excellent.” she smiled at him. “We have a deal then?”

“Where are we going?” he asked, his eyes on the magazine as she rolled it up and stuffed it inside her inner jacket pocket. Jack would kill her, but then the feeling was slightly mutual right now and this was the most passive aggressive way she could think to get back at him for making her worry like that. Who was she kidding? … she was still worrying and would be until he stepped back inside the castle gates.

“Ghoul hunt.” she told him firmly, and his eye twitched. Sam nodded grimly, he nodded back, swallowing. She understood, Mac both hated and feared ghouls after what had happened to his family, which Sam figured was as good a reason as any to bring him with her. He wasn’t about to underestimate them.

\---*---

She was right. There was a vault under the ghoul infested school. She kept that bit of information to herself for now; so far it was just a bunker as far as anyone else knew.  
Sam stared at the computer terminal and looked up sharply at her team: Captain Ellis, one of their more experienced female recruits, who clearly thought this could be a bonding experience for the two of them. The other was a young but hardened Lieutenant Kelly, who knew his way around these archaic coding boxes that she was loathed to even call a computer. She hit a command key and the hatch beneath the Principals Office slid open, causing them all to jump and then look to her for orders or an explanation. She could do one of the two.

“Ellis, Kelly, stay up here, guard the perimeter. Any more of those pink ghouls show up I want them taken out, quick and clean.”  
Ellis opened her mouth, Sam was sure to argue. “You have your orders Captain, don’t make me repeat myself.”

“I’m happy to stay up top… if it’s all the same to you.” MacCready raised his hand and smiled thinly. He’d been on edge from the moment they’d stepped into the school. Particularly when it became apparent that the whole school, children and faculty included, were part of some Government experiment. From the information left behind, including the freaky Halloween banners and plastic pumpkins that had seriously disturbed her; the whole place frozen in a moment in time. 

The school had been short on funds and so the Principal had signed them up to take part in the Nutritional Alternative Paste Program (NAPP). A frankly disturbing program created, she suspected, by Vault-Tec in the guise of the Government, which had led to the school removing all other forms of food from its menu. Only the revolting pink slime (food paste) of which there were still vats in the basement, was to be served. What the paste was and its purpose, other than apparently turning ghouls pink, she suspected was on the other side of that secure hatch.

Sam smiled thinly at him. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a school teacher’s secret bunker?” she pressed and he swallowed.

“I’m a little scared of you right now.” he muttered but followed behind her as she gripped the ladder inside the hatch and descended into the dark. Lights flickered on as she went and she glanced up; MacCready was following her at least. As they moved down the ladder he swore, impressively, and Sam glanced up, her hand going to her gun as she gripped onto the ladder with her arm and pulled her weapon.

“What?” she hissed.

“This is a damn vault isn’t it?!” MacCready snapped down at her and she rolled her eyes, reholstering the gun. False alarm.

“Yes.” she replied. “Vault 75 apparently.” she added as she continued her descent.

“I hate vaults.” she heard him mutter, but he didn’t elaborate and she couldn’t help but agree. The damn things seemed to have been nothing more than petri dishes run by immoral assholes and sadists.

“No argument from me.” she told him as he hit the floor beside her, Sam raised her PipBoy, the torch light dancing off the familiar vault door and the port beside it. Vault 75 embossed on the front.

“I used to run with a bunch of… people…” he settled on and she quirked an eyebrow certain there was a story there. He grimaced under her look, “Fine, it was this raider group, The Gunners, they operated out of a vault. Gave me the willy’s then, especially when we realised what they’d been doing in there. Vault-Tec apparently stuck a bunch of addicts down there, supposed to rehabilitate them right. And it worked. They sealed them in good and tight, nice and cured. 5 years later they opened up a hatch with every chem known to man… just to see if they could really deal with temptation.” he shook his head looking faintly sick. “Bloodbath down there.”

Sam grimaced. “Yeah. I was stuck in an experimental cryopod for 200 years.” she replied, “I’m thinking we got off lightly” she added, sticking to their tried and tested story. MacCready nodded, he’d known that already but she didn’t see the harm in a gentle reminder that she wasn’t the bad guy here just because she’d been a ‘vault dweller’. Although the fact that he ran with the Gunners was something she’d probably need to keep away from Preston’s ears. He didn’t like the Merc anyway; finding that out would probably tip him over the edge. But, if what she’d heard about the Gunners was true, Sam thought it explained further why he was so adept at working in a military style group. Even a raider led one.

“Freaky pink ghouls aside, what are you expecting to find down here?” MacCready questioned as they reached the bottom of the ladder and jumped down. She suspected he was starting to re-consider the deal; if they got out of this she’d probably owe him a few more Grognak issues.

Sam glanced up at him as she plugged her PipBoy into the console and the gate slid open with a mechanical grinding. “It’s just a hunch.” she shrugged, but she was nervous,  
opening a vault door so far had led to nothing but horror and inhumanity. She dreaded to think what atrocities might await one beneath a school.

He stepped up beside her and looked at her PipBoy, and then the vault door. “Bit like you had a hunch there was a vault down here huh?” he pressed and she gave him a tight smile. He really was a little too smart for his own good. He’d known she was looking for something out here. After all, when did she ever go out on a Settlement run? … especially not lately. But his probing questions on the way over here had been relatively easy to deflect, until now. 

“Something like that.” she replied. “Shall we?”

MacCready raised his assault rifles and stepped onto the walkway into the vault. “Sure, why not?,” he muttered, “let’s go into the deep dark vault and see what they cooked up in here.” he glared back at her, “I want two Grognak’s for this shit you realise.” Sam nodded, like she hadn’t seen that coming.

“Sure. Just…” she reached for his arm wondering at the sudden impulse and he frowned glancing back at her and her hand on his arm, holding him there. Sam wondered if she looked as nervous as she felt, “Just don’t leave me down here, okay? I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine.” she said quietly, not quite able to explain her sudden fear; other than she didn’t want Jack to have to go through what she just had, when he heard she’d gone off on a mission of her own. He’d be mad enough as it was. 

MacCready glanced back up the hatch and the supposedly loyal Minutemen she’d left up there. It was strange but she thought she understood him; whatever they did find down here, they would probably be on the same page with it. She wasn’t so sure that the two upstairs would be and that made her nervous. Besides she didn’t need them in a fight. She and MacCready made a good enough team on that front. Not as good as she and Jack of course, but then no one was. She’d spent years learning to work with Jack in combat. She felt a pang of longing, and guilt. Maybe she should have waited, even though the ghoul attacks had been escalating in the area. The voice on the wire had been desperate, there wasn’t time. This had been the best option to save lives, Jack would understand that at least.

“Okay sweet-cheeks. I gotcha in there.” he gave her a cocky smile that slipped off his face when she returned it gratefully. “But I’ll admit this has got me a little spooked too. I mean to be honest, a vault under a school?... it’s like Vault-Tec ran out of ideas. This is almost banal for them yeah.” He swallowed not nearly as okay with this as he claimed, which was exactly what Sam wanted. After all anyone who walked into a vault expecting sunshine and roses had no business walking into a vault.

The complex was crawling with the awful pink ghouls that seemed slightly more intelligent, and so more of a challenge. Sam regretted not trusting the Minutemen to come down with them – or perhaps not trusting herself not to get ‘Jack’s men killed - but two extra guns would have been helpful after all. It was too late now. They were in deep, and besides, she was relieved that at least nothing was going to be coming down behind them. The disturbing truth of Vault 75 became quickly apparent. Sam supposed compared to what the other vaults had done, she shouldn’t have been surprised. 

The children and their teachers entered the vault together when the alarms had gone off. They’d been taken into two separate rooms and just like that, the adults were culled. Leaving only a vault full of children, the Overseer, Vault-Tec scientists and a host of nanny-bots, just like Curie had once been. The aim was simple and meticulously documented in the scientific records. Build a better tomorrow through eugenics and genetic manipulation. They’d primed all those children with the food-paste. Once they had complete control in an enclosed environment they’d begun testing in earnest, building on that work and moulding the young minds and bodies into actual Super-soldiers.

Sam looked at MacCready and he turned away hastily, wiping his eye discreetly as they left one of the ‘labs’ which still had the damn kids wallpaper up; like it was making a mockery of society, right next to the treadmills and the gurney’s. “Just something in my eye.” he muttered and Sam nodded, not needing an explanation as she fought back bile.  
This place had more information than most vaults; it was older it seemed, having been designed or at least conceived long before the bombs fell. The population inside here had been less of a risk as they were all children, but Sam was starting to suspect that might have been the reason this vault failed. After all, there had clearly been a revolution down here, if the bodies of the staff and bots were anything to go by. Oddly enough she hadn’t spotted many of the children’s bodies, which suggested that perhaps their experiments had succeeded after all, but they’d underestimated the ‘soldiers’ they’d built here. Which led her to the obvious conclusion, that these children must have escaped to the surface. Sam wondered what had happened to them and then decided she didn’t want to know. It was over a hundred years ago. Their descendants were probably the very people she had set up shop with, or had come out here to save.

Sam returned her thoughts to the machine in front of her, and the information it was revealing. “Have you ever heard of the Enclave?” she asked MacCready as she moved through the files on the Overseers computer; hacking through the protected system with ease and taking grim satisfaction in it.

MacCready came to stand behind her, his eyes watching her fingers as they moved quickly and confidently. “Tell you what. You tell me how you do half the things I’ve seen you do with tech and computers… and I’ll tell you what I know.” he countered.

Sam glanced up at him. This place must have rattled him because he was falling back into the old mercenary habits. “I told you, I was part of the military, a special unit…” she tried, but he waved her excuse away, with a dark expression.

“Look. I grew up surrounded by liars. Kids have the best imaginations you know. But we always, always smell a rat. There’s a rumour going around that you’re really a Synth… seems like someone’s been spreading that one for a while. I’ve even heard the Minutemen whispering it.” he admitted. Sam’s fingers stilled on the keyboard and she turned to glare up at him; the anger at that statement tempering into something of a slow burn. She’d fucking kill Marcie if this was coming from her somehow, whispered amongst the caravans. What the hell did she ever do to that woman?

“Oh, for crying out loud!” she exclaimed, borrowing Jack’s phrase. “How many times? I’m not a god damn Synth!” she snapped.

“No.” he shook his head ruefully, “No I don’t think you are either.” MacCready replied, “You’re too damn illogical and emotional, but there is something different about you.” he pointed out, then looked curiously at her again, clearly chewing on a decision. “So that crazy broad back in Sanctuary, the one that sent you to that damn Sub.” He winced, knowing how badly that had gone for her and not wanting to bring it up. “So maybe I know her a little, and maybe I got a message from her few weeks back.” he paused, “Ah hell, this is gonna sound stupid, but she paid me to tell you and I guess it’s best not to stiff a psychic.” he sighed and Sam waited with bated breath. Mama Murphy damn her! As if she hadn’t caused enough trouble lately. 

“She told me that if I ever started talking to anyone again, that I was to talk to you, and tell you about the thing I loved most as a kid, about my dreams.” he looked nervous about that suggestion.

“So, what was it then, your dream?” Sam asked irritation and curiosity warring inside her, but she had to admit she was slightly thrown by the idea that Mama Murphy and MacCready had some sort of history.

“I love the stars.” he told her simply with a shrug. “Not sure what use or interest that is to you though?” he blew out an exasperated air, as if he was considering why in the hell he was opening up to her. Whatever Mama Murphy had said clearly had an impact though because he continued when she didn’t ridicule the notion. 

“When I was a kid, I used to stare up at the stars, and I’d read those damn comics about the Unstoppables and Grognak the Barbarian. He’s from space originally you know, crashed as a kid.” he smiled slightly, explaining, which she appreciated as she’d not attempted to read one. “I just couldn’t believe that in all those stars up there, there wasn’t one with life like ours on it. Hell, I wanted to go to space on a rocket, find what was really up there, be like Jangles the Moon Monkey.” he grinned wistfully. “I found one of those old toys for my boy you know, still in the space suit and everything. It was the first time he’d smiled in months.”

Sam flinched. “I see.” she spoke softly, recalling him whittling a rocket and looking at that with fresh perspective. 

He gave her a thousand-yard stare as though she was mocking him. She wasn’t but this topic was complicated for her and full of possible dangers. “So why’d the old coot want me to tell you that?” he queried. Sam didn’t respond, so he sat on the edge of the desk, his hand going in front of the screen and blocking her view, drawing her attention back to him. “Sam?” he pressed, she wasn’t going to get out of this by just ignoring him, she realised.

She sighed. “I suppose because she’s meddling.” Sam replied, wondering just why she was even considering being honest, other than he had just shared something clearly personal. After all she shouldn’t be listening to anything Mama Murphy said. She had sent her to that damn Sub and that had been a complete and utter bust; worse it had sent her spiralling into depression and grief. She stopped in her mental spiral and thought about it for a moment. Mama Murphy had sent her to the Sub, or at least she thought she had. Which had led her to feel like she needed to do something, some good out here, which had led her down to this damn vault with some noble damn idea about… oh. Sam blinked… oh, oh, oh! 

She lifted her head and took in a calming breath. ‘God damn psychics’, as Jack would say. Mama Murphy had orchestrated this somehow, she was certain of it. She couldn’t even begin to fathom how she’d done it, but that crazy old woman had manipulated a series of events, which had all led to this. To Sam being sat here in a vault alone with MacCready. A vault where she was starting to suspect the ghouls had got cooked up, and here she was sat with a man who’d lost his wife and his hope to them. A man who needed something desperately… desperately enough to hire out his services and gun to the highest bidder at the drop of a hat. A man who would do anything to save his sick son.

Sam glanced up at MacCready taking him in and wondering how it was he’d run into Mama Murphy in the first place. “Do you know Mama Murphy well?” she asked suddenly, and he seemed to consider the question.

“I wouldn’t say well. I met her once in Little Lamplight. She passed through and we let her in. We don’t normally do that for Mungo’s.” Sam blinked, “Grown-ups.” he added in explanation and sighed shaking his head. “Sorry I slip sometimes back into the old words.” he added sheepishly. “But she told our fortunes, in exchange for bed and board. Saved her from a price on her head apparently.”

Sam took that in. “So, she owed you because you saved her life years ago?” Sam wondered aloud, wondering just how long-ago Mama Murphy had seen them coming.  
“I suppose so.” he considered. Then leant in closer to her. “You owe me too by the way. I told you what she’d said… out with it.” he insisted.

Sam considered him, sitting there; he looked so young, but his eyes were the oldest things she’d ever seen. “I’m not sure you really want the truth and honestly, I’m not sure how to tell you it.” she admitted finally, wondering why the hell she was feeling an irresistible urge to. Maybe she was just tired of lying to everyone, tired of half-truth’s and keeping who and what she was bottled up inside. MacCready knew how to keep his mouth shut. Particularly if she was right about what she thought might be down here. Mama Murphy was more than nudging her to tell him. She was flat out sending her a billboard sign to do it. But if she did that, if she accepted that this was all part of a plan, Mama Murphy’s plan, then she’d have to also accept the fact that maybe, just maybe she had got power. 

Which meant that there was still a chance for the Stargate. Granted Sam had realised this last month, after thinking about it. She had put her own in interpretation on the old woman’s words; she couldn’t have known back then what waited out here in the Wastes. But she did now, and with fresh eyes, and knowledge, she’d turned her eyes South. To the actual Glowing Sea. A place so flooded with radiation, the only way she’d be able to consider going out there would be if she had some sort of suit. 

The bog-standard radiation suits they’d come across wouldn’t cut it. This would take something specially designed. She’d thought about converting her power armour frame, but she lacked the materials to even properly repair that one, let alone upgrade it to include next level radiation shielding. Plus, there was only one and if there’s one thing she’d learnt was that she wasn’t doing things without Jack again. The difference this time was she would go in with a heavy amount of scepticism, but it was something she supposed. She was back to throwing snowballs after all. 

“Try me.” MacCready countered, drawing her back from her thoughts as she stared up at his face. The neatly trimmed moustache and goatee was meant to make him look older than she was beginning to suspect he was, beneath that trench coat and military cap. His arms crossed as he waited, open curiosity on his features. He was just a big overgrown kid she realised, one who’d had a gun instead of toy handed to him. So much of his life she imagined had been blighted out by hardship and misery, that she was mildly surprised anything of his ‘dreams’ remained. But it was there. Mama Murphy had clearly seen it, somewhere in the corner of his soul; he still dreamed of the stars and looked up in wonder.

“Okay here goes… I’ve been to outer space. A lot.” she told him firmly, considering her choice of words and deciding the simpler the better. He blinked then scoffed, clearly not believing her, or worse assuming she was mocking him and his dreams. Sam rolled her eyes. “I told you, you wouldn’t want to know. Not really.” she reminded him. 

He took off his hat, a first, she’d never seen him without it, and ran his hand through his slicked back dark hair. His eyes scanning her face for signs of deception, or clues as to her ‘travels’. He didn’t seem to find either. 

“So, what? You’re some sort of astronaut for the USSA?” he questioned, looking confused, after all the space programme on this Earth was in its infancy still, they’d barely gotten to the moon when the war had diverted all rocket research into weapons. He snapped his fingers suddenly making some sort of connection she wasn’t aware of. “Wait a minute! Was that why you were in those cryopods in the Vault, was it part of the Deep Sleep Project for space travel to Mars?” Sam blinked she had no idea what he was talking about. Her expression must have been clear on her face, because he laughed; clearly she’d just inadvertently debunked one of his nerd theories. “Okay, I’m guessing not.”

“Astronaut yes… just not from here.” she admitted. He gave her an assessing once over; she knew he was smart because it didn’t take him long to come up with the obvious conclusion to that.

“You’re telling me you’re an alien?” he asked finally an undercurrent of disbelief there maybe, but not fear, which suggested he either didn’t believe her, or wasn’t as smart as she gave him credit for.

Sam bit her lip. “Not exactly alien. But I’m not from this world.” Semantics. She’d also been host to several aliens, but she kept that to herself, deciding she’d said too much already. 

“Well that’s cryptic.” he muttered, “And confusing.” he added, looking faintly irritated.

“Yeah well, imagine your me and your trying to fix that confusing little cock up.” she bit out with genuine feeling and he frowned at her, scanning her over once more and trying to adjust his world view for a moment, but he at least seemed to be considering it now. If so, she supposed he was taking it remarkably well, but then he’d hoped for this hadn’t he? When he’d dreamed of something more out there.

“The General too?” he asked as if suddenly realising that was probably a possibility.

Sam nodded. “But we’re stuck here, so when in Rome, you know?” MaCready shrugged, apparently, he didn’t know the saying. “We tried to blend in.” she qualified. He looked fairly surprised by that.

“You call the General leading the Minutemen revival and you wandering around the Wastes looking like,well you… building grenades out of God damn toothpaste, blending in?” he pointed out, half laughing at her now she suspected.

Okay so perhaps they hadn’t kept the lowest of profiles, that never had been Jack’s style. “Look,” she snipped, “I’ve told you what you wanted to know,. It’s all I’ve got so is that good enough to satisfy your curiosity?” she tried to press the issue now, after all they had work to do here.

“Not even a little.” he retorted. “So, if you’re an alien, then why are you here?” His eyes widened as a notion occurred and then he shook his head, “You know, if you came looking to conquer us, you’re a couple centuries late.” His lips quirked up into a grin, and it really shouldn’t have been funny, except Sam chuckled.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was an accident? We sort of, crashed… into your world.” She gave a half truth, this was about as honest as she could get without blowing his mind. He wasn’t ready to hear about parallel worlds, alien Gods with eyes that glowed and a ring of stars.  
“You crashed?” he narrowed his eyes. “I find that hard to believe.”

Sam shrugged a wicked smile playing on her lips. “Jack was driving.” It was fun to tease the man, even when he wasn’t here to defend himself.

“Now that I believe.” MacCready muttered. “Huh… so space aliens are real. And pretty…” he gave her another once over. “I was expecting bug eyes and you know… tentacles or something.”

She gave him a look and his eyes almost bugged out of his head, the mad urge to tease him rose. “Looks can be deceiving.” she retorted with a wink.

“Oh man…do you have tentacles?” he asked sounding like it was Christmas.

“No!” she bit back hiding her smirk. “Get your damn head out of the gutter.” she snipped. “This is your race’s first contact with an alien and you’re embarrassing yourself.” she pointed out and he shook his head laughing lightly, but he kept looking at her like he was expecting her to sprout a second head or something.

“First contact that we know of!” he exclaimed, but he was grinning, his eyes a little younger in that moment. “Wow, maybe that Area 51 stuff was real.” Sam froze. Okay, now that was a little too close to the bone and she deliberately didn’t look at him, but her hand trembled. Aliens and Area 51. 

My God. Could it be?... could it have happened here too? Her mind sparked off in a thousand directions and she tried to force herself to focus on the here and now. She needed more information; she wasn’t going to make the mistake of doing anything half-cocked again. Evidence, she needed it first. But right now, she needed to figure out why she’d been pushed towards this particular vault.

“Look if you’re done playing twenty questions, we should really get back to the vault full of pink ghouls and horrible experiments.” she gestured to the terminal he was still blocking, suddenly eager to get back at it.

“Right. Right. Yeah.” he slid out the way, “I’ll let you do your… alien thing.” he replied only half joking, she suspected.

He watched as her fingers flew over the keys. “We must like look complete idiots to you.” he replied after a few minutes, and she looked up suddenly hearing the darkness that wasn’t there before in his tone “I mean we blew ourselves up?” he added with a shrug that hardly did those words justice.

Sam arched an eyebrow at him. “I’ll admit, when we first got here the devastation was a shock.”, which wasn’t a lie. She glanced over at him as he scratched the back of his head clearly uncomfortable. “Look Robert,” she tried to console him for a moment, understanding the way he was feeling. How many times had she stood in front of a ‘superior’ alien race and felt like her species were being judged and coming up short? “I’ve been to a lot of worlds.” she confessed, “I’ve met a lot of people. Aliens or otherwise. I’m sad to say that yours isn’t the only civilisation to destroy itself.” she told him, and he looked up, absorbing that with a slump; she supposed it wasn’t all that comforting come to think of it. “Unfortunately, it’s kind of a common theme. Any civilisation that starts advancing technologically has the potential to destroy itself.” Sam felt the need to explain further, but he was right, this Earth was destroyed; it couldn’t come back from this.

He took that in with a nod, “But still, I mean if you can travel in space and stuff, your technology must make ours look like toys?”  
She shook her head. “Not so much. Your technology is just different to ours. Some of it is pretty advanced, others mind bogglingly basic.” she continued scouring the Overseer’s notes. She felt MacCready shifting behind her; it was kind of freeing to be able to be honest for once, to not have to pretend. Even if it was just for a few hours hidden away in the bottom of a vault.

“So?” he had that tone again as he dangled yet another question, his curiosity quite apparent with the slight uptick in his tone. “Do you have super powers?” he asked after a moment. Sam turned around in the chair, sensing that the comic book fan was rearing its head again.

“I thought you already said I was a super-soldier?” she pointed out and he grumbled something she didn’t catch. “How about I get super-pissed off when I’m interrupted by endless questions?” She spun back to her machine and MacCready chuckled, stepping out of her way.

“Fair enough, but I’ve seen you shoot remember? No human being is that good a shot on the run.” Sam didn’t comment, wishing like hell she hadn’t learnt to be that good out here.

“Huh…” she paused, re-reading the information on the screen, in the Overseer’s communiques from HQ. She glanced over at him, trying not to get too excited, she couldn’t be certain yet after all. “What was the fortune Mama Murphy gave you, when you were a kid?”

“Mine wasn’t so much a fortune, more like advice.” he admitted, and cocked an eyebrow as if he was curious why she’d asked. “Well actually,” he stroked his goatee and glanced pointedly at her blonde hair, tucked up under her own cap in a ponytail for now. “She told me ‘blondes were always right’, which might have been how I ended up in so deep with my wife.” he smirked, a sad but clearly fond memory of her playing across his face.

Sam absorbed that, “Good to know.” she muttered, wondering if that wasn’t a message more for her than MacCready. Damn! that old woman had more power than she’d believed, if she’d somehow managed to manipulate multiple people’s personal timelines to converge in this way over decades. The probability of this being mere ‘chance’ was very low, or so her brain informed her as it ran off in some hyper-active part of her brain to work out the math behind it. 

“You have that face on… the one that the General said meant things were about to get ‘technical’.” he pointed out and Sam blinked, her brain wanting to unsee what she’d just read, what she’d just figured out.

“This place, it’s awful,” she admitted hardly able to get her head around other human beings doing this to each other, “the genetic experiments they were doing here, my God!” she bought her hand up to her mouth for a moment in faint shock, surprised she could feel that out here. “I think this food-paste, these experiments, may honestly be the source of the ghouls!” she exclaimed. MacCready gave her a confused look and she ploughed on. “It was a National programme. This pink sludge got served to children and teachers up and down the country, just a few years before the bombs fell.” She stared at the data. “They did some tests. It seemed to have entered the food chain. Dogs, birds maybe… maybe even some local water-sources through the plumbing.”

MacCready looked faintly ill. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“I think they primed certain portions of the population, inadvertently, to become ghouls on exposure to a large blast of radiation.” Sam pointed to the screen, “It wasn’t their intention, hell from this I don’t think there had been a documented ghoul before the bombs. But, it doesn’t change the fact that what they did paved the way for it. Look…” she pointed to the screen, “…they isolated some of the genetic coding in the children. They did some extensive ‘re-modelling’ to it; you can see that their propensity to ‘mutate’, particularly in response to radiation, was significantly increased. They made their genetic structure more malleable. The experiments ultimately led to nothing as the kids, probably sick of being prodded, rose up and murdered everyone using their now superior skills… those of them that were left after the experiments.“ she added. “But the damage was done. That paste was everywhere before the bombs; all over the country, creeping into the food chain from all angles. Who knows, maybe one or two doses might have been enough to leave them wide open to ghoulification under the right circumstances.” she concluded, horrified. They’d done this to themselves; she hoped it was accidental at least,. The faint even more disturbing thought occurred, that Vault-Tec had known exactly what might happen; ghoulification was one solution to surviving a nuclear holocaust, she supposed.

“So Vault-Tec made the ghouls?” MacCready asked looking paler than usual. “As if I didn’t need more goddamn reasons to hate them.” He shook his head, turned and spat on the ground. Sam echoed the sentiment. 

“Well in other grim news, it’s also the clearest indication I’ve found that Vault-Tec was actually a government run programme. Your own governments did this to you.” Sam qualified and he looked non-plussed. She supposed it was before his time; he didn’t really get the idea of Government she imagined. “Anyway, there was some sort of Shadow Government pulling the strings from behind the curtain. I can’t tell without the history behind it, but this Enclave is a word that’s been mentioned twice now in the Overseer’s notes.”

MacCready shrugged. “Only people I’ve ever heard talk about the Enclave are the Brotherhood of Steel. You’d have to ask them, I hear they had a war or something.”  
Sam absorbed that quietly. Maybe she would, if she ever ran across anyone from this Brotherhood. After all, if she was going to the Crater of Atom in the Glowing Sea, she’d need another power armour suit with some pretty fancy tech and word had it that was their speciality. MacCready started pacing, “Can we go already? This place is somehow ten times creepier now than when we came down here and I was already shitting myself over it.” he griped, looking thoroughly freaked out.

“Well you did follow an ‘alien’ down a deep dark hole.” she pointed out with a wink and he snorted, so at least he wasn’t too freaked out by that portion of the conversation. “One moment.” She followed a few more leads with a couple of keystrokes, her eyes scanning the data. “Robert, did you say you think your son was infected by a ghoul?” she asked, and he seemed to startle in surprise at her use of his first name, or perhaps it was the mention of his son.

“I guess?” he responded not sounding sure. “No one really knows what caused it, but it was right around the same time that Lucy… well you know. And he was with Lucy when it… happened.” he added looking so pained that she had to fight the urge to hug him. She really didn’t think that was something he’d be happy about right now.

“Blue boils you said right?” he nodded. “Did his skin take on a pink hue at all?” she pressed, and he nodded coming back towards her with a terrified hopeful expression on his face. Please God, let her be right. If Mama Murphy struck out twice here she’d genuinely shoot the cow.

“Actually yeah, right before the boils came up, he sort of flushed all over We thought it was a rash, but he was pretty pink now that you mention it.” He stepped in closer to her. 

“Sam, are you telling me that my son’s got whatever these bastards did to these kids?” 

“No.” Sam shook her head, “But this ‘ghoul’ protein marker, for lack of a better word is sort of endemic in the population now, I think. There’s so few of you left, genetic diversity must be pretty narrow. I imagine any one of you has the chance of becoming a ghoul if you’re exposed to enough radiation. It would go a long way to explaining how the hell you’re all still alive. Jack and I have to take RadAway every month and we take Rad-X pills every day, to help soak it up.” God, just saying that word ‘protein marker’ made her shiver. It was just like her own; Jolinar’s legacy that had doomed her to so many ‘special’ moments just because she carried it, through no fault of her own.

“Okay, you are way smarter than me, which you know, the whole alien thing does help with my feelings of uselessness on that, but what has that got to do with my son? He’s not a ghoul.”

“Not yet.” Sam replied, “I think he might be in the early stages though. In some people the first symptom was the pink tinge, others it was blue boils. Some showed no signs at all and just seemed to rot overnight.” She recalled what Jack had told her about the Mayor of Good Neighbour, ‘Hancock’ or something. He’d apparently been perfectly normal; born right here in the Wastes, until he’d taken some radioactive drugs and woken up not nearly as pretty as when he’d nodded off. 

“Sam!” MacCready snapped with clear impatience, terror in his eyes. She reached out for his arm, realising she’d been prattling and he was going down a spiral of desperate fear for his child.

“I think there’s a cure for your sons illness.” she told him. He gripped her arm and she didn’t protest. “The weird thing is, I think that Jack and I already found it. We were in this research facility in the North called Med-Tek. Jack had been hoping to re-stock our medical supplies a few months back. There was a secret lab. They had some sort of cure there, they called it PREVENT. It had some interesting side effects, but we had no idea what it was for.” 

Jack had uttered their famous last words ‘Let’s go check it out’. Apparently finding a ‘cure-all’ had been the preoccupation of more than one Lab out here, so they had of course done the sensible thing and shipped it off to Curie to look into. Although based on the side-effects listed against that one, they’d not had high hopes.

“May cause hair-loss, cysts and… 6-hour erections.” Jack had read out. He’d given her a look and she’d dutifully rolled her eyes.

“It also is a cure-all for something terrible. I’d suggest not stabbing yourself with it as a makeshift Viagra.” she’d pointed out just as glibly, and he’d thrown her a scathing look, as if to suggest he wasn’t remotely tempted, which she knew was a flat out lie. It had clearly crossed his mind. 

“I wasn’t gonna!” Sam hadn’t been remotely convinced by that, so she’d reached over and dragged him bodily into her by his combat chest plate, before kissing him soundly for a minute, or two.

“If you really want to be hard for 6 hours I’ll see what I can do, okay flyboy?” she’d half teased, half threatened him, and smacked his cheek fondly before snatching the vial out of his hands and shoving it into a metal chem box she never left home without these days. My God they’d had no idea what they had found back then, how glibly they’d treated it, but of course they couldn’t have known what it was, if she was right. But then she had no reason to doubt the information in front of her, even if she doubted Mama Murphy’s manipulations. 

“I think it was for the Lab-staff so that if they accidentally got exposed they could reverse it.” His eyes widened and she hurried on, standing up as he clutched tighter at her arm. She didn’t want to give the man false hope, because she knew from bitter experience how painful and soul destroying that could be. But hope… hope maybe she could do.  
“Robert, I don’t think it would be able to revert a ghoul, but someone in the early stages…” He hugged her not letting her finish as he pulled her so hard into his chest that she was momentarily winded. She slipped her hands around him and held him fast as he began to sob into her shoulder, great big wracking ones that she felt through her entire body.  
“It’s with Curie. We sent it to her for safe keeping and to find out what the hell it was.” she told him, patting his back and waiting whilst his sniffling began to cease and he lifted his head, turning away from her sharply, to compose himself she imagined. She pointedly ignored her wet shoulder.

“You sure about this?” he turned looking at her like she was either an angel or a demon, to give him this much hope.

“I’m not sure of anything anymore. But there’s a chance. I reckon that’s better than you had when you walked in here. Besides Mama Murphy vouched for my powers of deduction.” she pointed out.

“Blondes are always right.” he nodded repeating her words, his features shifting into something resolute despite his red rimmed eyes. “Maybe this fucking planet finally got some luck after all, the day you and the General crashed here!” he exclaimed with a grin that lit up his eyes in what she thought had to be the first time, and at long last she thought she could see the boy he’d never quite been behind the broken man.

Sam absorbed that and the look of, well she didn’t want to say hero worship, but she suspected it might be well on its way to becoming that. It was the way some of the Minutemen looked at Jack, like he was the second coming. She recognised it now for what it was. Hope, from the hopeless. It was a heavy burden to carry and she realised that she’d somehow been letting Jack carry the weight of it for some time, all by himself. They hadn’t been partners in this at all, and that thought ate at her. She could have lost him out there. It was so easy, a shot or two, too close to his vital organs and even their advanced medical tech wouldn’t be able to bring him back. She owed him better than this. Hell, she owed herself better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By necessity, I have moved Malden Middle School Vault 75 to beneath the Suffolk County Charter House School. The pink paste is part of the genetic experiments on the kids there (potentially to make Super-soldiers) and the Children there were being primed to go into the vault, where all the adults were killed, and the children kept to experiment on. I know Fallout 4 just goes dark when it goes there.
> 
> I have also combined MacCready’s Companion quest–to Med-Tek’s HQ with this one and played a bit free and loose with his son’s illness which was rather more generic in the game.
> 
> Thank you again to my Beta - your wonderful! Sorry for the last minute re-writes. Thank you for being an ear for me on this.
> 
> Interesting Fallout 4 fan theory I thought I’d share that I may or may not weave into this. Is that the Gunners were actually the escaped genetically engineered children (Super-soldiers) from Vault 75. In fact, in the game they actually maintain a base inside this vault. But because I’ve kind of blended the two stories together here for my narrative we’ll have to assume they all left this vault or were driven out by the ghouls and holed up in the one MacCready mentioned instead with the chem experiments – either Vault 88 or 95. 
> 
> The cause of ‘ghoulism’ being a Vault-Tec/Gov result of experiments in the general population from before the war because of this wide-spread paste, is as far as I know my own creation and idea. I just liked the fit of it into this narrative, particularly with Sam’s own ‘protein marker’, and the opportunity with the paste as the mechanism for that presented itself when moving the story into the Suffolk school. If it’s been done anywhere else I wasn’t aware of it at the time when writing!


	19. The Railroad

Jack hobbled into the Castle faster than he probably should have, he’d finally gotten on the horn himself only to be told that Colonel Carter had gone out on a mission with a small team… some Ghouls had been causing a ruckus and she’d yet to report back in. His heart had been just about in his throat for the last three days as he’d pushed his still sore leg to its max. Figures, they’d run out of damn Stimpaks right when he’d needed them in a bad way. He’d all but had the team drag him when he started to slow them down. He didn’t think he could bare losing her, but to lose her like this… the last words between them something terse probably. God! he couldn’t even remember what his last words to her would have been. 

Major Shaw met him at the gate and he gave her a glare as she stepped aside to let him in.

“Report!” he barked.

She started listing off spiels about the crops, supply-lines, settlements that had reported attacks, or missions they currently had running. Jack stopped dead, giving her a look that he hoped needed no interpretation.

“Has Colonel Carter’s team reported back yet?” He cut to the damn chase, before his heart exploded out of his chest.

She pursed her lips, “We heard from the team about an hour ago. The three of them are returning to base.”

Jack felt the vein in the side of his head bulging. “It was a four-man mission.” he bit out, “Who’s missing?” Please no… God no. Not her. Not now. Not ever.

“MacCready has apparently parted ways with them. It seems they found a Vault under the school. Colonel Carter didn’t want to discuss it on the radio, but she said she had found the source of the problem and it had been taken care of.”

Jack kept his poker face on. It was no secret how he felt about Sam, not out here with the Minutemen; most assumed they were married. But he still tried to keep some of his emotions in check, just so the idea of favouritism or jealousy didn’t raise its ugly head. Which was ridiculous, because if it came down to Sam or them, he knew who he’d choose in a heartbeat, and that thought kept him up at nights, given as he was supposed to be their Leader. But Sam was alive and he ducked his head with the sudden terrifying rush of relief that bought. Ronnie’s hand went down on his shoulder.

“She’s fine Sir. Why don’t you go and take a load off, rest that leg? Her team is expected back before nightfall.”

They came through the gates at dusk. One of the Lieutenant’s on babysitting duty with him stuck his head through the door to tell him. Jack was just getting his shit together and his boot back on to start hobbling out when she appeared in the stone archway to their room. Her eyes scanned over him and she hurried forward, her arm going under his, but he didn’t want her help. He wanted her in his damn arms. He pulled her into a hug and held on for dear life.

“Jack, sit down, your leg.” she insisted.

“My damn leg’s fine.” he bit out. “One more scar for the collection. You care to tell me why the hell you ran off to a damn ghoul nest, in a Vault of all places?” He looked at her for the first time since she’d come in and he was startled to see the change in her. She looked… like Sam again. Her eyes had lost that flat hollowness that had haunted him.

“Sam?” he questioned and reached up touching her face. “What happened? You look… how the hell did you go into a ghoul’s nest and come out looking, better?”

Sam shrugged. “Super powers.” She ignored his protests and guided him down to sit on the edge of their bed. The double bed with an honest to god mattress and sheets that he’d managed to acquire from Vault 81 as a personal favour. Although, getting it up here on the back of two brahmin had proved a challenge apparently. He still owed some of the suppliers a few crates of Donapples for that. Thank God he still got those at a cut-price rate given he had ‘naming rights’, or so he’d convinced the good Doc back in Vault 81.

“Sam?” he pressed. She seemed to be avoiding his eyes and when she finally looked up, he pulled her down onto the bed beside him and wrapped his hand around her waist, holding her there. His leg, despite his protests, preventing him from slotting her onto his lap like he wanted. It still smarted somewhat. Healing the old-fashioned way sucked.

“I’m feeling better I guess. It was a productive trip.” she added somewhat cryptically and he frowned, his hand cupped her cheek.

“Have you any idea how worried I was? I thought….” he trailed off not sure how to articulate his thought on finding out that she’d run off on what sounded like a bad mission, possibly to spite him, or worse in some adrenalin fuelled attempt to ‘feel’ something other than the despair and depression he knew she’d slid into. He shouldn’t have left her, he knew that, but he’d needed a little room to breathe himself. Her depression had started to drag him down; a little ‘safe’ rescue mission with the team had seemed like just the tonic. How wrong he’d been. He should have stayed right where she’d needed him and helped her, damn it!

“I know Jack.” she sighed, “But it turns out I needed to go, and I wasn’t trying to get myself killed if that’s what you’re worried about.” she told him pointedly. Jack let out a shaky breath.

“It might have crossed my mind … briefly.” he confessed, his thumb brushing her cheek and admiring the soft smile she gave him. God damn! … he was not expecting a smiling Sam when he got back, all busted up, from an op he knew she would have disapproved of, especially on the fly like that. Her hand lowered to his leg and she stroked over the wounded spot. It had put a hole in his damn favourite pants too. Fortunately, one of the guys was going to get the blood out and patch it up for him, which was good because he really didn’t have that skill set in his repertoire.

“On a scale of 1-10 how bad was it?” she asked, and Jack sighed. 

“Five or so.” he replied, she tensed slightly. “It was a pretty big bullet.” he admitted, the heaviness of what had happened washed over him and he let himself feel it, let her see it. “It nicked the artery.” Jack paused, a knot forming in his throat that made swallowing painful. “Foster… saved my life. Just dived his skinny ass right in the way.” He looked away and she let him take a moment, her hand just stroking gently across his leg, as if she was itching to check the wound herself. 

“I’m sorry. He was a good man.” she offered finally.

Jack grunted. He’d lost a lot of good men; it never got any easier. “He was still a kid really.” he replied, “But he knew what he was doing. He made the choice. I respect the hell out of him for that, even if I…” he wanted to say, ‘it should have been me’ but he bit back the words. He wouldn’t lie. He hadn’t got a death wish, not out here. Sam needed him alive.

“Thank you for coming back to me.” she replied softly, seemingly knowing what he was ‘not saying’. His split priorities to the Minutemen, and to her, had just reared their head again. “I’m sorry he’s dead, but I’m glad it wasn’t you.” she told him firmly, and he looked up at her resolute face, unapologetic in her fierceness. Jack nodded, accepting that in a way he might have struggled to before now. 

“You scared me too you know.” she told him softly. He heard the hitch in her words, the tears she was suppressing. “Until I heard that medic got to you, I had days just imaging the worst. I honestly thought I’d lost you.” Sam buried her head in his chest and he held onto her, sliding his fingers into her hair.

“I’m sorry. I guess we both screwed up huh? How about we agree, no more solo trips yeah? Not sure the old ticker can take stress like that.” he admitted and she didn’t comment. “I’m not used to being the one left behind Sam. I didn’t really get it until I heard you’d gone out there. I mean I know I’ve had to wait for you on missions before, but this was different.” he added, “this was the first time we’ve done it when there’s a proper ‘you and me’.” he tried to explain, but she merely nodded.

“It really sucks.” Sam added finally. Jack pressed a kiss to the crown of her head as they lapsed into a quiet stillness, just holding each other.

“If it’s any consolation I think I finally get your point of view too.” she added, breaking the silence that had fallen between them, heavy with loss and guilt. He raised a querying eyebrow as to what she could have possibly learnt. “I was sat there listening to the radio and hearing those calls for help. I just heard something that I couldn’t ignore. Right then I realised how you’d been feeling, day after day, listening to people crying out for help and knowing you were in a position to do something about it. It just isn’t in you to say no.” she told him, stroking his cheek fondly. Sam leant in, pressing a soft kiss to his lips; so gentle that they started to tingle. He fought the urge to deepen it, letting her take what she needed for now; well aware and concerned about her back-sliding into the depression she’d only recently pulled herself out of. 

Sighing she stood up and he reached for her hand, trying to tug her back; he wasn’t quite willing to relinquish her warmth just yet. Sam looked down at his grip on her and smiled softly, lacing their fingers as she came to stand in front of him, stepping between his legs. 

“What was in the Vault?” he asked, staring up at her as she gazed down at him. He knew she could hear the multitudes in that question, “Is MacCready still alive?”

Sam traced a thumb over his lips, as if she just had to touch him; he pressed a kiss to the skin. “He’s alive. He just had to go take care of something.” she admitted a little cryptically. “I did a good thing Jack.” she smiled softly, “Really good! … I feel pretty damn good about it right now.”

Her grin was infectious and he grinned back up at her, his hands dropping to her hips and pulling her into his chest to hold her there. Seeing her smile like that was worth the damn hike on his bad leg. 

Sam dropped her hands around his neck and ran a hand through his hair. “I know why there are ghouls running around the Wasteland.” she admitted and proceeded to tell him what she had found in the horror that was Vault 75, and just why MacCready had hightailed it back to Diamond City; to find Curie and head back to the Capital Wasteland with what she hoped was the cure for his son’s sickness.

Jack wasn’t sure if it was possible but he felt like he was frozen in a moment, staring up at her. Her golden hair haloed in the lantern light of their room; her body warm and solid against him. Adoration, and something completely primal, surged through him and he didn’t know what to do with himself. Torn between the instinct to hold her and bury himself inside her or to just stare at her in utter wonder. If he was guilty of putting her on a pedestal, then damn it, it had just been raised ten feet higher with this, secured with damn bolts to the ceiling. She was beyond anything an idiotic flyboy like him had any right to aim for.

“Sam … I …” he cleared his suddenly dry throat as he tried to verbalise what the hell was happening inside of him right now. He was in awe he thought, only that didn’t seem a strong enough word. The last time he’d felt something even close to this was when he’d watched her blow up a damn sun. Before that, it had been when she’d rescued the Asgard; when she’d ‘miracle-d’ him off Edora; pulled Teal’c from the gate’s buffers; beat the crap out of Turgen; and that very first time, when she turned up in her dress blues, with that flight record, those IQ scores and challenged him to an arm wrestle. At each one he’d thought she couldn’t possibly raise his expectations more, and yet here she was again. “I don’t say this lightly, so I need you to hear me okay…?” He slid his hands up to her cheeks and held her there for a moment.

“You’re a Goddess.” he told her without a trace of humour. He meant it. Sam frowned, a confused smile on her lips. She didn’t believe him or understand what he was trying to say.

“I’m serious. I don’t mean the fake glowing eyes kind. I mean a genuine, ethereal, miracle working Goddess, and I really, really just want to ‘bask’ or something, in you right now.” he confessed, his hands on her cheeks reminding him that he was touching the divine right now.

She quirked an eyebrow at him, but there was a blush rising up her neck to her cheeks, which he watched with fascination. “Jack…” she tried shaking her head and he tightened his hold on her, drawing her in for a kiss that he hoped might make her understand. Jack worshipped her mouth with his tongue, only stopping and pulling back when he started to feel light headed. His ego took a bit of a boost, when he realised she still had her eyes closed and her bee stung lips were parted, her chest rising and falling a little heavily. 

“You’re sweet.” she murmured, “A sweet idiot.” She laughed at him gently, her eyes open and sparkling at him. It was the best damn thing he’d seen in months. He hadn’t realised just how heavily the weight of her sadness and despair had weighed on his own soul.

“Oh?” he countered.

“I didn’t do anything Jack. We already found the cure. At best I pointed him in a direction.” she sighed, looking away from him, seemingly uncomfortable with this praise. “Jack you have to take me off this pedestal you keep putting me on. I can’t actually walk on water. I’m worried one day you’re going to be crushingly disappointed when you realise I’m just me. I make mistakes … like with that Sub.”

Jack frowned. She didn’t get it, but then she wouldn’t. For a woman that took pride in her work and wasn’t shy about claiming her well-deserved successes, Sam was sometimes ridiculously reluctant to take credit for something she didn’t feel she had earned.  
“Sam, listen to me. Really listen. Because I need you to understand this. What you did out there was nothing short of a goddamn miracle and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it. Do you understand me?” She frowned looking faintly surprised by his insistence on this. “You went out there on a hunch and discovered the reason that some of these poor saps turn into ghouls. As if that wasn’t enough you’ve resurrected a long-lost possible cure!” he exclaimed. Sam opened her mouth to protest that it only worked on those poor saps in the early stages of ‘ghoulism’ but he cut her off. 

“Sam don’t. You know as well as I do, that if that damn thing can be reworked for the long-time ghouls then Curie will find a way. The fact that you’ve probably saved MacCready’s kid’s life shouldn’t be the aside, but it is, because the rest of it is that incredible!”

“I got lucky.” she retorted, sounding faintly breathless and embarrassed, “Besides you do things like this every day. You go out there and try to bring hope; you inspire everyone that meets you.” She tried to bring it back round to him and he kissed her again quick and hard, before pulling back to look at her and tugged her firmly onto his lap. His damn leg be damned. Sam squeaked at the sudden movement, just about managing to get her knees either side of him to try and reduce the weight on his leg. But honestly, he didn’t care. He just needed to be close to her.

“Sam. I go out over and over with a gun and a plucky attitude and save a few people. You go out there and damn well figure out one of the biggest mysteries in the Wastes. Have you any idea the kind of hope that a possible cure for ghoulism would be to these people…? Or better yet, detection and prevention from ever turning into one in the first place.” he asked, his eyebrows high as he grasped in seconds the impact of her actions, which had clearly escaped her big brain until this moment.

She stilled over him, her long blonde hair falling free of her cap and he reached up whipping it off and letting blonde locks tumble free, well past her shoulders now. “Goddess.” he rasped up at her, meaning it. Jack had never put much stock in a higher power, but damn it, he could believe in her. Nothing would shake that. Of that he was utterly certain.

000000000000000000000

[3 weeks later]

Jack sat grinning next to the radio. He didn’t even care that it was Travis on the damn horn, just that he was spreading the good word about what his Blonde-Haired Vixen out of Vault 111 had done now for the Commonwealth and the Minutemen. Apparently, Jack and the DJ shared a similar opinion when it came to Sam’s heaven-sent assets, a big one of which was that impossible brain of hers. It seems like MacCready had taken it upon himself to have a chat and give the DJ and Piper the scoop whilst he was there, clearly thinking that everyone needed to know about this. Jack was in complete agreement.

200 years and no one had been able to figure out why some people went ghoul and some didn’t, or what triggered it. The chatter was excited and they’d gotten a bump in sign-ups off the back of this. At least ten new raw recruits and a handful of vets, including a few ex-Gunners and Raiders who had   
apparently seen the light. He might need a bit of convincing on that one.

More importantly the persistent rumour that seemed to follow Sam around, appeared to finally have been squashed. Jack wasn’t an idiot, he’d been aware that behind even the Castle walls the words ‘Synth’ seemed to shadow her. Maybe they still would, but people at least now didn’t seem to care one way or another. He’d had more than a few of his militia walk up to him and just clap him on the shoulder or shake his hand, right before they asked after Sam and subtly insinuated about joining her next mission. Popular didn’t cover it. Sam was a goddamn Rockstar from here to DC, where MacCready had reported back that his son was doing well and looked to be making a miraculous recovery. Jack suspected the man had run all the way there to have reached the lad so quickly, unless he had a plane or a working boat he wasn’t telling anyone about.

As for Sam, well she handled it the way she handled most praise; smiled politely, blushed and stepped back into her lab. He whistled as he walked there now and wrapped his knuckles on the door. She’d taken to locking it now after more than a few new faces, particularly ghouls, had turned up at the castle doors with the express purpose of shaking her damn hand and then asking for the cure, which she obviously didn’t have. They had to install a filter system in the form of a little Q&A at the gates and remind everyone that MacCready’s boy was in the early stages; a cure for full on ‘rotted ones’ took time. Of course, that wasn’t popular but they promised to keep people updated on any progress, and in the meantime, if they wanted the research for themselves they were welcome to it. Sam had downloaded all the data into a stack of holo-tapes which they handed out at the gate for the more persistent; hoping they would take that and look at working on it themselves. After all, knowledge like that was better spread far and wide; many heads make light work and all that.

Curie of course was their ace in the hole but they kept her name out of it for her protection. The word down the line from Nick was that Curie was busily working away in a new lab space in Diamond City, trying to reverse engineer the Prevent cure and to figure out what they’d done in the genetic resequencing, which they’d managed to slip into the population with their damn pink paste. Jack was mildly concerned that by being out here, with this contaminated food chain, they’d end up like that too. Sam had hypothesised that along with the effects of the FEV virus. which had caused the Super-mutants and some of the animal mutations, it might explain some of the more exotic creatures if the protein marker and the virus had got together and had a party somewhere down the line. The whole thing freaked Jack out so he’d purposely avoided speculating and was pointedly ignoring Curie’s requests for a blood sample from them both. Some things it was better off not knowing.

“Sam!” he called out, knocking again more firmly when the door hadn’t opened on his first attempt. There was the sound of bolts and the door opened ajar for a moment, as her blonde head stuck out.

“Oh, thank God it’s you! Get in.” she hissed and dragged him in by his shirt. Jack smirked as she hastily shut the door behind him and watched her reapply the bolts and locks. “I swear to God I can’t seem to get five minutes peace and quiet. Everyone suddenly needs to be in here for some weapon mods or something.” she muttered, stalking to her workbench and clearing stuff off a chair for him to sit on. His leg was fine, but she liked to mother him a little bit and he wasn’t too proud not to take the sympathy vote where he could. He eased onto the stool, a spinning one she’d acquired especially for him to sit in when he came to visit. Just like back home.

“Cut them some slack Sam. They just want to bask in your magnificence.” he teased and she glared at him.

“Stop it.” she pointed at him, her expression serious. Sam wasn’t that fond of that kind of talk and she’d been getting a lot of it from all sides; he grinned at that thought. If human beings could worship snakes with glowing eyes and bad outfits, they could damn well worship Samantha Carter and consider it a step up. “You do realise they’re going to expect me to walk on water after this. You shouldn’t have said anything!” she accused faintly, but he didn’t suspect she actually blamed him for her sudden fame.

Jack shrugged. “Hey, word was already out courtesy of your little boy-toy team up in Diamond City. With them blowing up the airwaves it was hardly going to stay a secret. Especially not once old Hancock got word of it in Ghoultown. Man! … that guy never shuts up. You think you’ve got it bad. I’ve somehow wound up with a standing date with him down the wire.” He eyed her with a smirk,   
“Plus you totally could you know… walk on water, if you put your mind to it.” 

“Not helping.” she muttered, but he saw her brain tick and he knew in that moment that an idea for doing just that had probably popped into her mind. God, he loved this woman. She caught his look and rolled his eyes.

“Are you here for lunch or just to bug me?” she queried with an eyebrow up at him.

“Ooh, lunch you say? You shouldn’t have.” he teased and she leant in, grabbed his chin and pressing a kiss firmly to his lips. 

“There’s your lunch.” she licked her lips. “Delicious.” Sam swiped her thumb over his lips, wiping off the lipstick she’d acquired from somewhere and he grinned wickedly. “Now go away. I have work to do and we both know that there is a definite negative correlation between your presence and my concentration.”

Jack leant forward on his elbow and cupped his chin. “Ooh, that’s it baby, talk dirty science talk to me.” he teased, only half joking.

Sam swatted him upside his head and he grabbed her hand before it could retreat. “Gotcha.” he muttered, swivelling his chair and dragging her in until he had her pinned against the workbench. 

“You do realise that I could stop you?” she growled.

Jack’s lips curved up. “That’s what makes it fun. Knowing you could and don’t, which means you want me to catch you.”

“Jack honey, that’s a large part of our relationship described right there.” she grinned at him and he paused.

His eyes widened in surprise at her faint ‘honey’. “Was that a pet name…. for moi?” he queried, unable to suppress his smile. Sam gave him a look, her mouth opening and closing as if she was startled by it herself.

“I’ve called you affectionate names before… haven’t I?” she asked, looking suddenly nervous and for a minute she was his adorable Captain-Doctor Samantha Carter again. All wide eyed and intimidated, and trying to play with the big boys… not realising she was already leaps and bounds beyond them.

“Jackass… asshole, jerk. Sir. Colonel.” He listed out on his fingers, “General Sir when I’ve been really naughty.” he waggled his eyebrows at that. “Jack, when you really want to get my attention. O’Neill once but I’m not sure that one counted given as you had an alien AI in your noggin.” Although he wasn’t sure it was wise to bring that last one up.

Sam didn’t seem to notice; she mostly just looked faintly amused and embarrassed by his teasing. “See, this is why you get called those things.” she tried to escape him and he pinned her with a thigh, sliding his arm around her waist.

“I like honey.” Jack murmured and dropped a kiss to her neck that had her stop trying to escape him. “Not sure it’s got anything on Goddess though.” he chuckled and bit down gently on her neck, only to have her laugh against his hair.

“I told you I really don’t like it when you call me that.” Sam pushed at his chest, but he distinctly recalled her being not so bothered about it when he rasped it against her chest whilst buried inside her. Worshipping her as he liked to think of it.

“How about beautiful?” he murmured, trailing kisses up her neck to behind her ear and listening for that tell-tale sound of her breath faltering. “Wonderful, gorgeous, sexy as hell…”

“Is this what does it for you?” she rasped her teeth nipping at his ear, the husk in her voice, if he was honest, was pretty much doing it. “Random pet names?” she quirked an eyebrow at him and pulled back. “And here I thought ‘baby’ was bad enough.” she tutted, but she didn’t look that upset. 

“You’re right of course. I don’t need fancy pet names to make you shiver …” he leant in pressing his lips to her ear, “… Samantha.” Jack let out in a deep rumble against her ear, that never seemed to fail. There was a faint tremble and he was certain he felt the pulse in her neck jump and he grinned pressing a kiss there. “My sexy Samantha.” he added for good measure and she threw her head back and laughed in one long throaty sound that made part of him tremble too.

“God, your insufferable when your smug.” Sam groaned and he pulled back with a scandalised look. “Besides you missed off one of my pet names for you.” she smirked and pressed a kiss to his chin whilst he wore his patented ‘do tell’ eyebrow. “General Hot-stuff.” she reminded him and he felt arousal tug at him, tightening his balls. Why was it other women could say that and he’d swing from mild annoyance to thinking mildly sexy thoughts, depending on the speaker? From Sam though, it was practically scandalous. Possibly because she’d spent 8 years being the prim and proper 2IC with barely a cuss word out of her mouth.

“Is there anything valuable on that workbench?” he growled at her and hitched her legs up around his waist, lifting her in a smooth movement that had her clinging onto his neck in mild alarm.

“Oh my god, No! Put me down.” she exclaimed, but she was still laughing so he went for it.

“Valuable, yes or no?” he queried straining a little with the effort and wishing he was 10 years younger… hell 20 years younger, so he could show her properly without his damn knees or his back playing up. Sam looked at the workbench then up at him, realising he was serious. 

“No.” she rasped sounding breathless, her eyes had dilated to dark pools.

“Anything that might go boom?” he added, because this was Carter’s lab after all. Jack slid his hands to her ass and she rocked against him, locking her legs around his hips and clutching his head in her hands. When she started kissing him, he felt his legs wobble slightly, suddenly unsteady.

“Several things.” she replied finally, kissing down his chin to his jaw breathlessly. “I’d suggest this end.” Sam added gesturing vaguely and he didn’t need telling twice as he slid her onto the workbench and stood firmly between her legs.

“You know I wanted to sweep all that crap off there, in a fit of romantic passion, right?”

“Uh huh Hot-stuff.” she moaned as he pressed himself firmly against her groaning at the contact. “Let’s romantically not explode.” she pointed out. That was his Captain-Doctor, ever the pragmatist.

Jack waggled his eyebrows and pressed his hardness against her again easing the pressure for them both a moment. “No promises ‘Samantha’.” he grinned and she looked up at him darkly. Oh! … had he known about that little magic word all these years ago, he’d have had so much fun with it. Apparently having to call her ‘Carter’ all these years, mostly for his sanity after he’d realised his attraction to her, had left her with a hankering for her actual name from his lips.

“Call me honey again.” he grinned happier and probably hornier than he had any right to be right now. “Gets me in the mood you know.” he chuckled biting on her collarbone and lying through his teeth as he pressed his very ‘in the mood’ self against her.

“Oh, you poor thing. Trouble getting it up? Shall I talk science to you some more?” She was teasing and he loved the fact that the old Samantha Carter would probably have stammered and blushed before getting even half that line out. For a confident woman, her confidence in sexual relationships had needed a bit of work, probably all the ass-hat boyfriends she’d had.

“Hit me with your best nerd speak…” he muttered, trailing his hands around her ass and pressing a row of kisses under her jaw. He was seriously enjoying the way she was rocking into him. Yeah, so it was a weird kink, but weird suited them. Even more so now.

“Shall I tell you some more about my advancements with the laser rifle?” she smirked and he thrust against her covered crotch with his own. It didn’t stop the sensation at all, as he held her as close as was physically possible. Eyes closed, Jack groaned in pleasure when she rocked back into him. She leant in cradling his head to her shoulder and pressed her lips to his ear to rasp in it. “I could tell you all about the strides I’ve been making in adaptive optics.” Sam ran her mouth over the lobe and he clutched her ass harder. Oh, she was a damn tease. 

“How about the fact that I’ve introduced a beam splitter, which corrects for the distorting effects when the laser source hits the atmosphere? I had to use a tertiary mirror and a frequency modulator.” One hand held onto the back of his neck whilst the other traced a path down his tensing chest and he felt himself getting impossibly harder. This was so many kinds of wrong, but it was seriously doing it for him. “The frequency modulator has to operate at several hundred hertz just to compensate for the distortions, or the whole thing refracts back into the optical crystal and….” She slipped her hand into his pants and he closed his eyes at the feel of her fingers circling him. “Boom!” she rasped against his ear and he fucking came with a sound of anguish and deep-seated pleasure as he rocked into her hand; Sam groaned like it was her who’d come, a satisfied grin curling her lips.

“God damn you, you wicked, wicked woman.” he rasped and pulled her hand out of his now ruined pants. “That was underhanded.” he hissed, pressing a kiss to her chin.

“Seemed more like one-handed to me.” Sam looked far too smug, grinning at him like the damn cat that got the cream and he let her have it, for a moment at least.

“Oh glib…” he used her chuckle at his clear annoyance to drag her ass from under her and pressed her down firmly onto her back, on top of her own damn workbench.

“Nowhere in my ‘Carter’s lab’ fantasy, where I stroll in and you attempt to explain to death something technical, did I ever fantasise about coming in my underwear, before I got so much as an inch inside you.” he growled, kind of proud of her for that.

Sam just grinned up at him. “Really… I thought it was kinda hot.”

“That’s because you’re a naughty nerd.” he leant forward and captured her mouth, shutting off that smugness to kiss her senseless. “You know you’re going to pay for that right?” he said, running his hand down her torso and slipping inside her waistband. Her breath hitched and he grinned wickedly.

“Whatever you say… Sir.”

000000000000

Sam’s head was still on her workbench. One look at Jack stood opposite her, with his smug smirk and she knew he knew exactly where her head was at. She struggled to focus, but Nick Valentine never had been one of her favourite people.

“Look, if you two would quit making moon-eyes at each other, or whatever it is your doing, you might work out that I’m trying to tell you I found the bastard!” Nick barked at them both down the radio and she startled, his tone making her back snap straight. Jack rolled his eyes at her, like she was a cadet on the training field being balled out by the drill sergeant for the first time. This was why frat regs existed, she reminded herself. Because had she known the man could pin her to her workbench and make her come screaming whatever the hell name he wanted, she didn’t think she’d have ever got any work done. Although how Nick knew what they were doing from across the airwaves she had no idea.

“Kellogg?” she queried returning to their conversation and picking up on his statement. Jack stiffened and she sent him a warning glance; he was supposed to be ‘looking’ for his son after all. His kidnapped son. Not pinning her to a workbench and making her forget there even was a Kellogg… fucking hell. She was supposed to be finding the damn Institute, or the Brotherhood and what might be their only chance of technology to get them into the Crater of Atom, and maybe, just maybe, home.

“Where did the blueprints lead then?” Jack replied and placed his hand firmly on her ass, making her stifle a moan. Now was so not the time, they needed to focus on this. The last time they had seen Nick was after they’d thoroughly searched Kellogg’s shack in Diamond City. Sam still had mostly fond memories of that shack. She was considering it their ‘City Break Apartment’. It was better than that basement hole the Mayor had tried to rent to them for an extortionate amount of caps. And … oh my God! She slapped Jack’s wandering hand off her and glared soundly at him with a look that had him smirking and holding his hands up in surrender.

“You know, I bet Dogmeat would have sniffed him out in no time, like Lassie or something. Fetch boy.” Jack muttered, tapping his fingertips on the desk in her lab, his hands trailing over the workbench and making her recall just what those fingers had been doing before Nick’s voice had rudely interrupted. 

“Yeah, well dog’s aside I was the one doing the digging in some not too nice places, which reminds me, you owe me a new hat.” Sam rolled her eyes, he and Jack and their damn hats… seriously. She could just imagine a bullet riddled fedora on top of his head right now.

“I’ll get right on that.” she grinned despite herself; fully intending to replace his damn trilby with a pink bonnet she’d found.

“Anyway, like I was saying,” Nick continued sounding justifiably wary of what replacement she’d sort for him, “the sneaky little rat’s holed up in an old military base called Fort Hagen.”

Jack sauntered towards the back wall and grabbed the maps they kept there as backup, a match to the radio station in the centre of the Castle, manned 24 hours for settlement attacks. “And where pray tell is that?” Jack queried scanning it and clearly coming up blank.

Nick read out a map coordinate and Sam stuck her finger on the map.

“Ah crap.” Jack muttered. Sam leant in and looked at where her finger was.

“South West.” she finished, her stomach sinking even as her heart fluttered. It all seemed to lead to the Glowing Sea and the Crater of Atom. Along with the radiation, the other issue was everything got bigger and meaner the further South you went. Sam had added that particular name to that section of the map herself, after what had happened with the Sub.

“Of course he is.” Jack muttered. He glanced up at her, “It’s a long way Sam. Almost as far as Sanctuary. I don’t think, we can make that trip right now, not as we are. We have…” he glanced around looking at the castle walls, and the Minutemen walking around on patrol and she sighed.

“Responsibilities.” she finished for him.

“Yeah.” he replied. 

“That’s not the only problem Jack. I’ve been thinking we might need to go South to the Crater since Vault 75. Turns out Mama Murphy’s prophecy might not have been quite so off the money after all.” Sam gave him a look as he opened his mouth to say something scathing and he silenced at it. Now wasn’t the time over the airwaves. “The problem is we don’t have the radiation gear for it. Not even those boiler suits would do it. I have an idea about it, but I’m still working out the kinks.” she admitted and Jack gave her a look that was curious but patient. He trusted her to let him know when he needed to know, and that meant a lot. Sam nodded in response, feeling her chest tighten a little. She didn’t like having to put the idea of home, or at least possibly finding a way to reach technology of the kind she’d need to get home, on the backburner. It just never seemed to be enough of a priority out here and she honestly couldn’t figure out how to change that. Jack had said it best; just surviving out here was enough of a damn problem. Of course, there was also no guarantee they’d find Kellogg out there or if he was even a part of this, except all roads seem to lead to him and that damn Institute.

Valentine cleared his throat and drew their attention back to him. “You know I could go take a look see. Radiation won’t bother me none.” he pointed out and Jack shook his head, before realising the guy couldn’t see him and grabbing the mike.

“No. That’s mighty fine of you Nick, but this is our problem. Besides radiation might not bother you but the things crawling out there I’ve heard about might just snap you in half. You’ve done enough. We’ll take it from here.” Jack reasoned. Sam suspected some of that was so that the web of lies that they had spun around Kellogg and Shaun didn’t come shattering down, if he did ever find the man. And in part to protect Nick, after all who knows what he’d be walking into out there. Plus, if it was technology or something she could use to get them home, or the ‘ring of stars’ at least, then it needed to be them. Nick wouldn’t know what he was looking at.

Nick let out an agreeable sound. “Well, maybe there’s another way to find out about the Institute, without traipsing across a radioactive desert after a man that doesn’t want to be found, dodging giant monsters.” Sam looked curiously at Jack who leant over the mic and rolled his eyes.

“That sounds ominous Nick.” Jack quipped, but he sounded as intrigued as she was. Another option would be good right now as she was all out of them.

“Remember that Freedom Trail I told you about?” Nick started and Jack shook his head and looked at her a little helplessly with a shrug; ‘I got nothing’ he mouthed. Sam rolled her eyes at him. Honestly, it wasn’t that he was stupid, he just had an incredible ability to shut out anything he didn’t want to retain.

“The historical walk through Boston Commons.” Sam spoke up, and Jack made an ‘Oh’ mouth and she shoved him in the chest. He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm, not releasing it; apparently she’d surrendered that one now to him. “Sure,” she tried to focus on Nick. “Sight-seeing sounds like fun. I like a good game of outrun the ghouls as much as the next girl.” Sam replied, because she had spent literally no time at all on that thought. Nick snorted, clearly amused with her sarcasm, which she still found disturbing. Any machine that ‘got’ sarcasm was operating at a level she really didn’t want to dwell on, so she was deciding to think of Nick like one of Harlan’s robot bodies, with a human mind downloaded into it. A human being in a robotic body sat a little easier for her. 

“Well your enthusiasm for our noble past aside. I’ll be less cryptic shall I? Go find Shem Drowne, he’s at the end of the Freedom Trail. He’ll point you on the right… ‘track’.” he told them emphasising that last word. Sam looked at Jack who covered his eyes with her stolen hand. Clearly, he was in the mood for a scavenger hunt as much as she was.

“Nick. Your certain buddy that this Shem is going to be a link to the Institute?” Jack muttered.

“Why? … because I enjoy blowing smoke up people’s asses so much?” Nick growled and Jack snorted out an amused sound. Sam wasn’t smiling though. They needed more than this; they had responsibilities here now. Jack wouldn’t just up and leave his men now for no reason, she knew that.

“Look, just maybe go with an open mind, yeah? And make sure the safety’s on that pistol of yours blondie.” Nick warned and Sam bristled, she wasn’t a hothead. Granted their first meeting hadn’t been the best introduction, but she liked to think she didn’t shoot people just for the hell of it. Sam wasn’t sure she liked the sound of this, but she seriously doubted that Nick would send them somewhere dangerous. Well… not ‘that’ dangerous. He was advocating they go towards skin sloughing off levels of radiation to hunt a known killer in the Golden Sea after all.

“Ok Nick. Nice work on Fort Hagan!” Jack had decided this chat was over, “we’ll get out there as soon as we can. For now, we’ll go take a stroll down the Freedom Trail for your man.” he eyed Sam with a crooked smile. “I feel like a brisk walk with heavy weapons would be just thing.” Jack quipped.

“Yeah, keep up the good work… both of you. You’ve got a lot of people looking to you now. I know you’ve been hearing it a lot, but you’re making a real difference out here. Don’t forget that.” The radio clicked off and Jack growled, his hands sliding round her hips again.

“Reckon he knew we were butt naked?” Jack smirked and Sam leant back into him, dropping her head back onto his shoulder, whilst his hands took up their previous path before Nick had come squawking over the line.

“Probably, he seems to know everything else.” Sam retorted and Jack chuckled into her shoulder before trailing a row of kisses down her back and she stopped caring that a robot on the other end of the wire likely knew exactly what they were doing right now.

00000000000

“You know, I never was much of a history buff.” Jack told her as he picked up a pamphlet, that was literally about the Freedom Trail in Boston. He eyed it trying to make out what the faded words were saying. Sam rolled her eyes at him and hacked into the information terminal, downloading the trail onto her PipBoy. 

“That’s cheating you know.” he pointed out and she smirked at him.

“Cheating is just winning faster.” Sam retorted and he quirked an eyebrow. She shrugged. Oh, it was like that he realised.

“I’m starting to feel a great deal more sympathy for your poor Dad. I was honestly expecting you were more of a nerd trophy for matheletes and girl scout cookies kind of wild child.” he informed her; he’d had a pretty clear picture in his mind of young Sam. Although that didn’t exactly gel with the motorcycle, jet building adrenalin junky aspect of her persona, which he was also extremely fond of. How Jacob hadn’t had a coronary by now he didn’t know.

Sam pointed her gun at him. “What’s wrong with my cookies?”

Jack held his hands up. “Nothing. Daniel’s still using that pound cake you made him as a paperweight in his office isn’t he? Delicious.” He was about 90% sure she wouldn’t shoot him. The fact that she couldn’t bake, or cook anything at all, not even boiling MRE’s was a constant source of amusement and contention. Given as Sam and science went together like… well glue, and baking was supposed to be a science, it seemed she’d missed out on that part of her education. The fact that she could screw up a Betty Crocker pre-made brownie mix had been a source of bafflement and amusement to him for years. Even Charlie had managed those.

Sam lowered the gun, “It’s a good job you’re cute. Sir.” She spun on her heel and started following the damn golden trail, stopping at all the ‘must’ see historical monuments the Boston Commons had to offer.

“You know when they set this particular task I don’t imagine they thought anyone following it would be accounting for 200 years of nuclear fallout, collapsed buildings and oh yeah… ghouls.” He shot the one that lunged out at him from behind a trash can where it had clearly laid down for a nap.

“Probably not.” Sam replied, her eyes mostly on her PipBoy as she opted for a shotgun, which she’d modified for maximum area of effect spray and barely looked up as she mowed down two that came screeching out of a nearby building. He was faintly impressed, they’d made him jump, but that was possibly because one of them was glowing green.

“Is it supposed to glow like that?” he asked as she stepped over the leaking body nonplussed.

“It’s not supposed to look like that at all.” Sam reminded. “It’s just like the Radroach we saw in Vault 111; it’s actually emitting radiation not just absorbing it. I wouldn’t touch it if I were you.” she added as he lowered his head to get a better look. Like touching it was even an option? Jack knew that Sam was hopeful the ‘PREVENT’ cure might one day help these poor suckers, but he was starting to think that maybe there were some things you just wouldn’t want to come back from. 

Sam paused outside a church, her eyes narrowing. “The Freedom Trail ends here.” she sighed, looking around as if expecting a guy with a microphone and a billboard to jump out and hand them a gold star. Jack frowned and glanced at the Church and then the graveyard. Sam might have had her head in the PipBoy, but he’d been looking around and there was something that didn’t quite belong; it wasn’t the first time he’d spotted it either. 

He pointed his gun at the white chalk symbol on the church wall, it looked like a lantern. “What do you make of that?” he asked and Sam looked at it.

“Graffiti.” she dismissed.

“Well, that graffiti is all over the Commonwealth.” Jack told her firmly, irritated with her response and she paused, looking up at him and finally giving him the time of day. He shrugged, “It’s painted all over the place. I’ve seen that lantern once or twice, but otherwise it’s symbols, numbers maybe. Someone’s communicating with each other. Some sort of spy network at a guess.” He’d seen something like it before.

Sam looked from him to the lantern, and whilst once she might have wanted more evidence she nodded. “Okay. I’ll take your word for that. In the meantime, maybe we should check these graves for Shem Drowne, because I’m starting to think he’s been here a lot longer than us.” Jack startled at her logic and her trust. I mean she’d always trusted him, but he usually had to give her some evidence. 

Jack grinned, whistling to himself faintly as they stepped into the graveyard to look. “Jack wait the…” hands shot up out of the graves and Sam huffed. “… ghouls.” she muttered, lifting her shotgun, as she started putting holes in anything that was attempting to get at them.

“I’m still not convinced that these ones aren’t actually dead. I mean that thing is definitely coming out of a grave.” Jack pointed out and Sam shook her head.

“I think they just want to be dead Jack. Lying down in a grave is as good a way as any to try to be.” she reasoned and he closed his mouth, because that was a damn fine disturbing thought to leave him with. More so even than resurrected zombie ghoul people.

Shem Drowne’s grave was unremarkable when they did find it, until you looked at the back. There was a sun symbol carved into it. Along with an inscription and an old school lantern. Jack looked at it, their worlds were different but this he recognised.

“It’s an old Railway lamp.” he told Sam as she was examining the inscription. “We don’t have to dig him up do we?” Jack asked, because he wasn’t sure he really fancied that right now. Knowing old Shem, he’d try and take a chunk out of them.

“Follow the tracks, into the Light.” they read on the inscription.

Sam got up from her crouch and looked at the lamp, then the lantern on the church wall. “I’d suggest we take it literally. Otherwise it’s a bit on the nose given as the poor man’s dead.” she pointed to the Church. “Shall we?”

“What tracks?” he asked and she pointed to the chalked symbol. “Oh.” he mouthed.

Inside the Church was another bloody nest of ghouls and perhaps they were getting over confident because he wasn’t too worried, until Sam’s sudden shout as she disappeared half into the floor on the upper level, the wooden beam she’d stood on having rotted through. Then Sam screamed and started shooting downwards frantically and he realised that there were ghouls underneath her. He launched over to her, taking a flying leap across a crumbled landing. He made it but his foot crashed through another damn floorboard. It took him about ten or fifteen seconds to get his leg free; in that time something had taken several bites out of his damn calf straight through his pants. Jack pointed his gun down the hole his bloodied leg had just vacated and started kicking vigorously. Whatever was down there stopped moving and screeching and he looked up to see that Sam had dragged herself back up onto the beams and was cradling her left arm. Blood was dripping down her fingers. He hurried across, touching her leather jacket which he’d have hoped would offer some protection. His finger went through and slowly he lifted it to see the teeth marks in a cluster that had torn a good chunk or two out of her forearm before she’d gotten a bullet in them. They needed to start wearing more armour he considered, forearms, legs, you name it. But then this wasn’t supposed to be some sort of damn ghoul show either for fucks sake. Jack would take a chunk out of Nick for not giving them the heads up on this, if he knew.

“Shit Sam.” he muttered, and swung his pack around, rummaging in it until he found a Stimpak; never leave home without them. He’d learnt that damn lesson after the last time; these things were gold dust. He shoved it in her thigh before she could protest and he watched waiting until the wounds started to close over leaving her with some nifty scars but perfectly healed. Ever since he’d learnt it was possible to actually ‘catch’ ghoulism he was a lot more cautious around scratches and bites from these things. 

Sam was pointing to his leg. “They got you too!” she reminded him. Jack pulled out another Stimpak. It had been a while since he’d used one of these, and he’d have given his right arm for one a few weeks ago when he’d been shot. Miracle band-aids they might be, but he still found the idea of them slightly disturbing. They stimulated healing, quickly, and arguably better than you’d get if left to its own devices, but they worked in a natural fashion which meant a scar formed. Watching the wound and angry red scar form so quickly always felt a bit freaky to him. Of course, there were limits to their powers, they weren’t going to regrow a limb for you and if you lost a big enough chunk and enough blood you’d still bleed to death without a blood pack. But hey it beat the alternative.

Jack crouched down and pulled up his cargo pants under his knee, examining the track of bite marks. It looked like the thing had only got two good holds. “Honestly, the amount of ghouls we’ve killed and we’re felled in a damn Church.” he told her irritated as he shook his head, “By floorboards no less.” he added eyeing the clearly unstable second level they were currently precariously perched on.

“I’m starting to think whoever left these symbols may be really doesn’t want to be found.” Sam added, looking around nervously, her gun gripped in her good hand as she slowly flexed the fingers of her left, no doubt the itching and burning sensation of the Stimpak tapering off signalling it was done.

“Well, we’re here now.” Jack groused and pointed his flashlight at another lantern symbol ahead of them on the ground level, leading to a back room. “I’m curious to see what exactly is down here, that’s worth all this cloak and dagger crap. I hated this sort of shit when it was my actual job.”  
They made their way down the steps and then further down into a basement.

“Are we seriously going into a basement full of ghouls?” Sam muttered, her PipBoy light shining a few feet ahead of them, cutting through some of the gloom. “I’m tempted to re-wire Nick for this… I can have him singing Kumbaya if I damn well want.”

“Fun as that would be. Let’s not die down here first.” he replied. “Oh God… and I thought I’d smelt everything, but hello church basement, full of rotting nearly-corpses!” He gagged and Sam looked at him like she was considering again damaging her sense of smell on purpose. He’d thought the suggestion was nuts, then this happened.

The basement wasn’t the end sadly, there were catacombs, or sewers. Jack was hard pressed to tell which; it all stunk and his boots were wet. The further they went down, the more rotten these poor creatures got. To be honest, by this point Jack was just happy to put them out of their shuffling misery. His hate for the poor blighters had diminished since their first encounter in the Woods. Back then they had been unknown, seemingly relentless, monsters. Now, he knew better and he wished he could think of them as ‘just’ monsters again without a huge dose of pity getting mixed in there somewhere. If he rotted like this, he’d want someone to put a bullet in him too.

There were lights down here, big construction type ones on stands which was something. The generators had been disconnected but the lights were there and functional; Sam got them up and working again. They flooded the area with light and he thought he preferred the shadows. But it meant that people were regularly down here, enough to need the damn lights. Although why anyone would willingly come down here with all those ghouls he didn’t know, unless that was some sort of test. Jack thought it was more likely though that no one had been dumb enough to walk the so called ‘Freedom Trail’ much past the Church full of nasties. Not committed to getting in through the front door, which meant there was probably a back door used more regularly. He glanced down at his bloodied leg that was feeling pretty much fine now twenty minutes later, which in itself was all kinds of wrong.

“Are you alright?” Sam pointed her PipBoy light in his direction and he blinked, night blind now and he waved it away.

“Ow.” he groused, “I’m fine until you decided to blind me.”

“You’re quiet.” Sam continued, but the light was at least pointed at the floor now as they moved through the partially lit place. But she was intent on him; he knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t about to just continue without something from him.

“What?” he griped, “We’re in a sewer, my feet are wet and I’ve got human bite marks up my damn legs. No, I’m not especially alright. Yesterday I was happily making sweet love to you on a workbench. I’d quite like to go back to that, before something bites anything else off!” Sam stepped forward and without much warning gripped him around the back of the head and kissed him. Kissed him like she was intending on doing something about it, before she abruptly stopped and cupped his cheek.

“I love you.” she gave him a moment to let those words sink in as she gazed up at him and he was slightly stunned by the fact that she could make him dizzy with want and emotion in a damn sewer. 

“Thank you for doing this. I know traipsing after evidence of this Institute isn’t exactly what you had in mind.” 

“Anytime.” he rasped, his brain having diverted blood supply momentarily and preventing him from saying anything more eloquent. 

Sam slid back out of his arms and lifted her rifle, stalking off to the next corridor. Maybe it wasn’t a sewer then after all, sewers didn’t have corridors, did they? Catacomb sounded better he mused and fitted the weird tombs and arched alcoves he was seeing dotted everywhere.

“You know Danny probably would have got a kick out of being down here. I bet there’s all sorts of historical stuff and interesting things we’re missing about this place. 

Sam trudged on. “Probably, but I wouldn’t have been kissing him down here.” He could hear the chuckle behind her teasing.

Jack blinked. “No. That would be…. yeah, let’s not put images like that into my brain.” he got out, the disturbing flash and his dumbfounded, if slightly aroused reaction, enough to cut off that trail of thought abruptly.

When he caught up to Sam, she’d come to a stop and was pointing her light at a section of the wall. “You’re right, Daniel would have been useful about now.” she admitted as he took in what she was seeing. It was some sort of giant seal, a metal plaque on the stone wall that had an image he couldn’t really make out in the middle. But around the outside it said quite clearly. 

The Freedom Trail Boston.

“Bit of a strange place to drag people on this little tour of Boston huh?” he queried but Sam was reaching up and tracing the power cables that were evident on the wall, back to a point that even he could see was probably going to be a doorway.

“So, we what? … press it?” He tried shoving his hand into the centre, the whole thing depressed like a button but then nothing happened; it didn’t budge. Jack lifted his hands up and around, finding that there was give after all; he startled when the whole metal outer ring with the lettering on began to move.

“It’s a combination lock.” Sam told him needlessly, he’d worked that out just fine.

“So, what’s the passcode?” he queried which was more to the point.

Sam looked at the words. “I told you Daniel would have been useful.” she tutted, “Well it’s clearly either an anagram of these letters or the letters include the word. I highly doubt that it’s a random series of words. This whole thing strikes me more like some underground network. But for what I don’t know.”

Jack growled, “Sam… remind me to shoot Nick. This, was not helpful.” Her lips twitched, but she didn’t give any other indication that she was listening to him, as she examined the wall and the power cables again.

“Well, what do we know?” he started reasoning aloud. “Some dead dude with an unfortunate name that may or may not have drowned, pissed off someone, who graffitied up his grave. That told us to follow some sort of tracks into the light… there were lanterns. We followed them into a damp dank basement of a damn church full of nasties.” Jack glared at the symbol, “I’m missing inspiration here for any fancy key words.”

He started flipping the wheel at random. There was a small notch at the top of the circle and he assumed that was where the ‘code’ got registered. Jack spun it at random and stopped it when it hit a letter. He pressed the middle button again. Nothing. He continued, trying random letters until one ‘clicked’ when he depressed the button, it sounded like a huge heavy stone shifting.

“R.” He told Sam pleased with himself. Daniel usually got to have all the fun on these giant puzzle games, but he got the impression that Sam was only half-heartedly paying attention to him and the puzzle. She had a head for maths and science but letter puzzles weren’t normally her forte. Although he knew from somewhat sore experience that she was a mean crossword player. Jack suspected that if he didn’t get this thing figured out, which actually quite wanted to do, she’d find another way in. Probably something that went boom.

“So, something with tracks, lamp light. Underground. Starts with R.” Jack mused and tried a hunch with the next letter. The A clicked into place next and he let out a little fist bump of excitement as he spun the wheel again got an I. ‘R.A.I’.

“Railway.” he muttered and Sam looked up at him, as he punched in the L. Only for the W to get a big fat nothing and there was a rumble as he suspected the entire mechanism reset. “Doh.” he muttered and started again with the RAIL part.

“Why don’t you try…” Sam started.

“Ah ah ah!” he wagged his finger at it. “I’m playing. And yes, I’m going to try Railroad next.” Jack snapped and she rolled her eyes but stood back, watching. The final letter clicked into place and there was a tremor as the section of the wall that Sam had been examining slid back into the stone, moving aside to reveal a passageway.

Sam gave him a proud little smile that he preened at slightly. “Thank you for humouring me.” he replied and she raised an innocent eyebrow in question. He pointed to her pen knife that was out and the copper wiring she was stuffing back in her pocket. “I take it you could have hotwired the damn thing into opening faster?” She smirked and shrugged.

“What and miss the sight of Jack O’Neill solving a word puzzle?” she chuckled, “Daniel would be so proud.”

Jack tutted, he probably would be so he was taking that. “Hey, at least now we know what the secret handshake … or word is, for whoever’s back there. Maybe they won’t shoot us on site for crashing their little sewer party.”

“Let’s hope.” Sam replied and stepped into the newly revealed dark corridor. They followed the light, which was less comforting than it sounded, stepping out into what looked more like a big stone cavern. Jack wondered if this was still part of the church as he looked up at the domed and arched stone architecture.

The sounds of guns clicking had him tensing. Suddenly people seemed to appear out of the stonework, four of them in fact. One from behind them, had a gun pointed at Sam’s head. Two more from their sides flanking them. Before a dark-haired woman, stepped up onto the stone platform ahead and stood arms crossed glaring at them soundly.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she barked. Not one for pleasantries then.

“Would you believe we got separated from our tour? Honestly, I had to go the bathroom and got all turned around.” he quipped and her expression didn’t change. Jack glanced at Sam, she was amused at least, he could tell by the little curve of her lip. At least he could make her laugh, and it also meant he got a good look at the guy holding a gun on her. The guy looked strong, his grip was good, which meant he might have some training. Jack didn’t want to risk trying to disable him before he got a shot off.

“We were sent by Nick Valentine.” Sam spoke up instead, cutting off his next pithy remark. Jack wasn’t inclined to trust people that pointed guns at him. An all too familiar occurrence in his line of work. “He told us we might find answers here about the Institute.”

There was a ringing silence to that, and the woman in front had a hell of a poker face, because Jack had no idea if that even made a dent on her.

“Ah come on, we just followed the damn Freedom Trail over the Boston Commons, which FYI is now infested with ghouls. We worked out your puzzle. Underground Railroad, very clever. So, you’re a clandestine network doing all sorts of cloak and dagger stuff against the Institute.” Jack took a stab in the dark and wasn’t shot down for it, but it made some sort of sense he supposed.

“You walked the Freedom Trail?” The woman looked faintly impressed by that or surprised at their stupidity, he wasn’t sure which.

“We did. And we’d love the secret handshake into what I’m presuming is another way in, cause that front door sucks.” he pointed back the way they just came. The way that no sane person would have come, which he supposed accounted for the guns pointed at their heads.

“We should shoot them.” Someone on the right of him piped up and he whipped out his pistol, not taking his rifle aim off the woman clearly in charge and pointed it at the party pooper as well.

“You could, and we’d shoot you. Probably make a hell of a mess though.” Jack pointed out with a grin that wasn’t the least bit amused.

“Nick sent them.” the guy behind Carter piped up, “I say we hear them out. Besides… I reckon we got ourselves our newest celebrities down here.”

He flicked Sam’s blonde hair with the hand not holding the gun and she spun on him, taking advantage of his momentary distraction, to knock his gun away with her hand and press a blade under his throat. The guy grinned, keeping his gun at his side and off her and effectively breaking the standoff. Interesting tactic Jack considered, it was kind of like something he’d do.

The woman tutted, but she looked nervous at the blade to her man’s neck. A blade Jack rather thought he’d decided to have put there. “Alright, I’ll bite. In a world full of suspicion, treachery, and hunters, we're the Synths' only friends. We're the Railroad. So, answer my question. Who are you?” she demanded and there was a pause. It was a pregnant one, almost like she expected some sort of reaction from them. Jack silently prayed to God that Sam wouldn’t react to that startling bit of news. He caught her eye and hoped their non-verbal’s were on cue, because now was not the time. Talk about landing in a damn snake pit. Oh, he’d definitely ruin more than Nick’s goddamn hat for this. They were damn Synth runners, underground Railroad his ass, this wasn’t about slaves or something, it was about damn robots. 

Jack had to answer though or risk looking like a complete idiot. Or just plain guilty. “Excellent. I’m General Jack O’Neill, currently of the Minutemen.” He gave her a lazy salute, and pointed at Sam, who had lowered the knife from the man’s throat but the two of them were having a stare down, which was good, maybe she’d missed the bit about the Synths. “This right here is Colonel Samantha Carter.”

The woman’s eyes widened at the introductions, looking between them and Jack didn’t miss it that time; surprise and recognition. So, she’d heard of them. He hoped that whatever this group stood for, that their goals aligned or this was about to get messy real fast and this group technically had the drop on them.

“General O’Neill, we’ve heard of you. We’ve been watching your progress with the Minutemen with interest. What you’ve done up at the Castle and across the Wastes is truly admirable.” her eyes drifted to Sam.

“Carter.” she started and Jack opened his mouth to correct what he realised might have been an error in using her damn name again. “You will find that this is probably the one place in all of Boston that is not wary around that name.” Sam flinched, he hoped it wasn’t quite as obvious to them, but the woman did seem to pause, sharing a look with Deacon, “We of course have heard of you as well,” she continued, a little more cautiously. “Your rather remarkable potential ghoul cure has got a lot of people excited. We received one of the holotapes you were so ingeniously handing out, through our network. We’re looking into the research to see what can be done.”

Sam turned to look at her, but she had her mask on; the one he’d seen before and tended to come out when she was surrounded by people pointing guns at her. She was leaving the talking up to him, which he thought was probably wise. Sam wasn’t especially known for being hot headed, no that was Daniel’s trick when he got all indignant about something, but it had happened on occasion. When Sam lost her cool … it never ended well.

“Swell.” he clapped his hands together and the guy next to the lead woman jumped. “What do you say since we’re all friends here, that we drop the guns?” Jack asked, with as much charm as he could muster.

“Very well.” she declared and he waited a three count as everyone did in fact lower the guns. Sam moved, the man behind her did to and they circled each other until she was next to Jack again and crucially no one was at their backs.

“You two are military right, or so the story goes?”, the guy that had opted to give them a chance spoke up. “The Survivors of Vault 111. Emerging into a post-apocalyptic world and setting out to make it civilised again.” The guy had a sarcastic air about him that Jack faintly recognised. Arrogance and confidence, and a steady gun arm. Was almost like a mirror, except this kid was way too pretty to be that bitter. Although it was hard to tell behind those mirrored shades and big hair, his outfit a mask Jack realised suddenly.

“I guess you got us all figured out.” Jack smiled banally back at them. “How about some names huh, aside from the Railroad?” He made air-quotes, mostly because it confused them and amused him.

“I’m Desdemona, this charming fellow is Deacon,” the guy gave a wave, her finger pointed to a white haired woman with a grim expression, “Glory and this here’s Tinker Tom.”

Jack gave them all a once over. “Cool code names. Do we get one of those? If so I’d like to be Homer.”

“That depends.” Desdemona stepped down to meet them at their level.

“On what?” Sam snapped, joining the conversation and he let his arm brush hers, just a touch. Not a warning, but a reminder that he was here beside her, and that no goddamn Synth was going to hurt her.

“On whether you want to make yourselves useful to us.” she declared and Jack sighed.

“Yeah. See, that’s not going to work for me. It’s a bit one-sided. I know where my skill set lies and right now I don’t have a lot of use for a bunch of spies playing peek-a-boo in the catacombs. What I want is information on the Institute.”

Desdemona and Deacon shared a look. “We have no love for the Institute.”

Sam frowned, and Jack shrugged helplessly. He had no idea where to go with that, “But you said you were friends to Synths, I thought they came from the Institute?” Sam asked, but like him he could see her confusion mounting. What the hell was this place?

“You really don’t know what we are, what we do, do you?” Desdemona looked between them. “Very well, I’ll show you what you need to see. I’ll bring you inside, give you the secret handshake and even code names … if you tell me why you want to know about the Institute?”

“Because they took my son.” Jack snapped letting anger colour his words into a bark, before Sam could say anything and she closed her mouth sharply at his lead. She didn’t like that particular fabrication; he didn’t either but it wasn’t completely a lie. “Kellogg and his bastards stole him right out the Vault. I’d like a chat with them.”

Desdemona looked pityingly at him but resigned. She’d heard that story before it seemed and that just made Jack feel a bit sicker about this world; where babies were kidnapped right out of their frozen parent’s arms and no one was surprised. “Whilst I’m sorry to hear that, sadly you’re not the only one to have lost someone to the Institute. And we are more than familiar with Mr Kellogg, he has no friends here.”

They were led then into their Bunker and it was just what Jack had been expecting; some kind of underground, with a fully-fledged people trafficking gig, although he was using the term people loosely. The Railroad were offering a new life, new face, hell even new memories, to these ‘escaped’ Synths that occasionally stumbled up or were thrown out of the Institute. Jack pressed his hand gently against Sam’s back as they’d talked, revealing the scope of their operation. Personally, he thought they were nuts. He wouldn’t trust him or Sam on so little, but he supposed they could either kill them or let them in, given as they’d turned up on their secret front door. They were being given a look-see with the hopes it might sway them to the cause, but with the way Sam looked like she potentially wanted to chew her arm off than be here, he was going for a hard pass on that. However, he wasn’t willing to close the door entirely; they might need this group. After all, if these plastic people had a way out of the Institute, that meant there was a way in, which was something they were very much interested in.

Turns out a lot of these Synth’s told a pretty bleak story. These 3rd Gen models, or so they called themselves, were largely human, flesh and bone; put together piece by piece in a lab, constructed rather than ‘grown’. Cybernetic implants were incorporated into their brains, skeletal structure and central nervous system. It all sounded a bit ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ to him, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. Most of these Synths it seems were used as little more than cheap labour and given the most menial of tasks; little more than blank slates. Although Jack suspected their ‘wandering’ up to the surface sounded a little convenient. Particularly as none of them had the faintest idea how they got there or where in fact the Institute was. Again, he kept that to himself. This lot seemed a bit… fanatical in their ambitions to ‘free Synth’s from their oppression’. Jack was having all sorts of ‘trojan horse’ and ‘sleeper agent’ style thoughts. He personally thought letting those things run around when there was still a question as to how they hell they actually worked was incredibly short sighted.

The longer they stayed to chat, the more he was starting to think that it was a dead end down here. Half the Synth’s they freed had their memories replaced with some sort of ‘happy home’, package courtesy of the ‘memory den’ in Goodneighbour. It gave them a head full of ‘someone else’, or a ‘few someone else’s’ and sent them on their merry way into the glorious Commonwealth. Jack honestly thought they’d have probably been better off in that Institute, with the boring but safe manual labour. It didn’t sound like they got shot at or had to farm in the radioactive dust for irradiated fruit and veg or hunt down a meal that was more likely to eat you first. That wasn’t a popular opinion; Desdemona and one of her lab-coat lackies had scowled at him and let rip with a whole speech about the right to self-determinism and freedom. Jack didn’t disagree in principle, but life out here wasn’t exactly rosy. “Who’d want this life?”. Desdemona stopped talking to him after that, which sort of suited him fine. 

Sam had wandered off, first to talk to that Tinker Tom fella, who seemed like some sort of Q from James Bond, inventing things that went boom out of things that usually shouldn’t. Jack thought on a normal day he and Sam would have gotten along swell, except today wasn’t normal and Sam’s back had never been straighter or her eyes harder. He’d felt the tension in her spine along his fingertips when he’d touched her and she’d stepped away. She was wound tighter than a spring right now and he was desperately hoping one of these idiots didn’t set her off.

He eventually found her again in a backroom full of computer consoles, talking to a robot. Not a Synth, an actual robot, with legs and everything. Some sort of Assaultron model by the looks of it, based on the ones they’d encountered so far, only with a nifty black frame and in much better nick.

“What do you mean it wasn’t calculated?” Sam snapped, throwing her hands up in the air as he entered.

The robot made a beeping sound. “Temporarily unable to process verbal input. Still processing.” the robot replied.

“Hello?” Jack waved stepping down the steps and entering a room full of machines and files to find Sam looking thoroughly exasperated and clearly having what looked like the start of a row with a machine.

“No… wait don’t ask!...” she started turning and waving her hand at him to stop him, but it was apparently too late; the robot turned to acknowledge him.

“New process. Unknown human entity, your arrival was not calculated.”

“Okay… strange way to say hello.” Jack replied, looking at Sam for explanation but she just rolled her eyes at him and dropped her head into her hands for a second. 

“Thanks Jack. You have no idea how long it took me to get her off hello the first time.” she shook her head and glared at him, like he could possibly have known that and he quirked an eyebrow.

“Her?” he queried a little surprised at Sam referring to the robot as a her, given her current disposition towards them. Before he recalled, albeit briefly, a conversation about apples and oranges - or was it pears? Either way she seemed to have a different headspace for AIs and robots.

“Oh, but this is PAM.” Sam replied with a definite touch of sarcasm, taking a seat and spinning around in it whilst she looked up in the air. ‘PAM?’ Jack mouthed at her and she waved at the robot with what was definitely irritation now.

“Preliminary adjustments to statistical models complete. Commencing introduction.” the robot declared and stomped forward into his space. Jack flinched back as it stopped in front of him, about 6 foot in height, despite his extra few inches. He felt somewhat intimidated by the black chassis of this thing, along with those pincer-like hands. This thing he believed could probably tear him limb from limb if it didn’t like his ‘processes’.

“I was, am, and will most likely be P.A.M. Predictive Analytic Machine.” it introduced itself.  
Jack blinked. Sam had placed her palms over her eyes and her head back against the seat. He got the impression she’d been through this before.

“What?” he managed looking from Sam to the robot, no one offered further explanation so he just went with it. “Nice to meet you PAM.” he replied finally, feeling odd not extending a hand.  
“Introductory token recognized. Nice to meet you, too, unknown entity.” PAM retorted.

Sam blew out a huff of exasperated air and dropped her hands from her eyes and glared at the robot. “She’s just a broken machine.” she tutted at him, ignoring the robot, or goading her, he wasn’t sure which.

“All systems are fully functional.” PAM retorted and turned her head to look at Sam sharply with definite sass. Sam stared back with a smirk, ok so she’d been goading it, which was just creepy. In fact, Jack found PAM way creepier than any Synth at this point. This had ‘Terminator’ written all over its weird robot-like female voice.

“Then fully-functional-PAM.” Sam teased it, “Did the Railroad build you, or did they find you down here?” she questioned and glanced around, “Because unless I’m mistaken, this place looks a lot, like a military radar tracking station.” She lifted up a document and Jack frowned, recognising the words.

“NORAD.” He read aloud. He looked at PAM then back at Sam and then around at – well now that you mention it yeah, okay this place had ‘hidden underground, super-secret, spy-bunker listening-post’, written all over it. “Well whaddaya know.” he murmured. Sam nodded, knowing as well as he did what that meant. Hell, there was a whole level of Cheyenne Mountain dedicated to NORAD in their world. Clearly this one had missed a few incoming nuclear blips on the old radar though, which meant this thing was old war military tech.

PAM looked between them, moving in a smooth swivel. “My goals and the Railroad organization have a high degree of correlation. They provide data.”

Jack digested that, but Sam was quicker and apparently hadn’t put her filter on today. “So, your using them.” she snorted, “I retract my ‘broken machine’ statement, I think PAM knows exactly what she’s doing down here.” Jack looked at Sam. She was being particularly antagonistic with the machine and he didn’t think it had anything to do with hang-ups from Fifth or Synths, this was something else. She thought the robot was playing dumb and was trying to provoke a response. He supposed it made sense, if they’d put a robot in charge of NORAD it would need more than a passing example of programming, it would have to make reasoned arguments. He shifted uncomfortable. He glanced back at Sam. A suspicion as to her line of thought forming in his mind. This was the robot that might well have launched a counter-response to judgement day on America’s behalf. Right.  
Sam had meant her statement rhetorically, but PAM seemed to have taken her question literally as to what she ‘did’ down here and answered. “I provide first order approximations of the behaviours of all residents of the region designated Commonwealth and present conclusions over time.”   
Sam startled and straightened in her seat. “Oh my God!”

“What?” Jack groused, “Seriously, tell me what the hell is going on?” 

Sam shot him a look, knowing he’d caught the gist of that and just wanted her to spell it out. “She tells the future.”

“Rephrasing. I predict the future.” PAM concurred.

Jack looked at the robot again, more doubtfully this time. “We already got a psychic Grandma; not sure we need a Robot Aunt that can pull the same trick.”

“You are correct, prediction is my primary purpose.” Jack sighed, Sam was right, conversations with this thing went in frustrating circles.

“Not very good then are you.” Sam retorted and Jack glanced at the hostility there as Sam stood to come to chest to chest with the thing. “You said we were unexpected entities. You didn’t see us coming did you?” she pointed out and Jack had to concede that point.

“Correct. I did not. You are anomalies. You should not be here.” PAM replied. Her head swivelling between them.

Jack paused, “Well, she’s right about that.” Freaky didn’t begin to cover this conversation and he was starting to suspect he should have stayed with the damn ‘Tinker’ guy that had lost his eyebrows in one too many backfires.

“Just how inaccurate are you?” Sam pressed on and Jack took up her seat, starting to feel the frustration that Sam had clearly been earlier.

“Caution. Biological life forms behave erratically. Unpredictably. All output subject to an extremely high margin of error.”

“So not great when human error is factored in.” Sam interpreted.

PAM stepped away from her, returning to the computer consoles. “Operation complete. You are a rogue variable. No current or previous models predict your presence or existence.” 

“You can say that again.” Sam muttered. “Tell me something I don’t know.” Except Jack noted that Mama Murphy seemed to have predicted them coming. He didn’t pretend to understand what Sam’s little epiphany or sudden interest in the old Gal’s words since Vault 75, but he was willing to go with it, if it meant she wasn’t sobbing curled up in their bed anymore.

“What is your point of origin?” P.A.M rattled off at Sam suddenly.

Sam froze. Jack opened an eye on her. “That’s an odd turn of phrase, don’t yah think.” Jack pointed out, given the Stargate’s requirement for that exact thing.

“Why do you want to know?” Sam returned.

“Insufficient data. Conversation terminated pending construction of new probability matrix. Rephrasing. Goodbye.”

The robot turned away and stood staring into space. Jack suspected that meant the conversation was over. “I think that’s our cue to leave.” He stood, touching Sam’s elbow, hoping she’d take the hint.

“I could hack her.” Sam replied quietly but she was looking directly at PAM. The robot paused in its actions.

“Calculating probability of failure. High.” PAM replied firmly without turning in her direction, but a light on its chest glowed more brightly. Now that was a robot warning if Jack had ever seen one.

“Okaaaaay, time to go.” Jack dragged Sam away. She was staring intently at the robot the whole time; it was the damn glint in her eye that had him worried.

Turns out they were ‘in’ the Railroad, but only peripherally. If they wanted anything else, or more info then they’d need to start helping them. But given as most of their operations were clandestine, it wasn’t exactly going to be helpful for the General of the Minutemen, or his Blonde Bombshell from Vault 111, to rock up. Not now Travis and MacCready had made them famous, and infamous. That left them with dead-drops, information gathering and occasional protection detail. There was one suggestion from Gloria, a woman with a part shaved platinum blonde head who Jack strongly suspected was a Synth, to embed some of her ‘siblings’ in with the Minutemen. Jack was less fond of that idea and nodded politely with a banal ‘We’ll see’.

They walked out the back way this time, which was thankfully ghoul free. “Okay. I have no idea if that was helpful or not.” he replied as they walked down the remnants of the highway, past the boarded up, rundown buildings, kicking debris out of his way.

“Maybe.” Sam replied. Jack looked at her quizzically. “I agree it probably didn’t get us all that closer to the Institute given as this lot are seemingly desperate to avoid tangling with it again. And unless you have some burning desire to help them achieve ‘freedom’ out here … I don’t think we should be touching them with a barge pole.” she concluded and he nodded. Yeah, that was pretty much what he’d thought. 

“Yeah. Your probably right about that. Seems like you got your arm chewed and my leg bitten for nothing.” Jack replied, conceding defeat and feeling a phantom twinge in the teeth marks that had scared over fine now. “That PAM was something though huh?” Jack added.

“P.A.M. was the most interesting thing in there.” Sam replied quietly, “And she’s lying.”

“Thought robots didn’t do that?” Jack questioned, kicking an aluminium can with a resounding thunk up onto an abandoned roof as they walked.

“Desdemona. She’s not leading anything, P.A.M is. There were communique’s in there, those drop locations, the arrival of the Synth’s, I’ll bet you anything she’s the robot controlling all that.”  
Jack narrowed his eyes. “You think this Institute is controlling PAM? That the Railroad is really unknowingly working for their own enemy?” Jack reasoned, it wasn’t the worst plan in the world, ingenious really when you thought about it.

“No.” Sam shook her head and he glanced at her the lip bite was troublesome. “I believe P.A.M when she said their goals were aligned. I don’t think she wants the Institute to succeed either. I just don’t think it’s got anything to do with the Railroad’s ideology. I’d also put good money down that it’s not out of a sense of the greater good, or sympathy for Synth’s either.”

“NORAD huh?” Jack stopped and Sam did too, turning to look at him. “Go on then. Hit me. What did you find? Because you had a definite angle when you were pushing her to answer your questions.” he asked.

Sam smirked. “Well, if they’re going to leave terminals around with rubbish encryption software, it’s almost like they want it to be hacked.” He snorted, and to think she’d once been the ‘nice’ one out of the two of them. 

“Let me guess. PAM and NORAD had something to do with the reason we’re in a Wasteland?” he reasoned, letting her in on his thought process too, if nothing else to show that he wasn’t a complete waste of space. He still had ‘it’.

Sam gave him a slow once over and he was certain he saw her eyes dilate. He hid a smirk, she liked it when he put his thinking pants on too. “Alright, so I managed to get into something called ‘the Switchboard’. It was at their last HQ, before here. But they clearly bought the data held there with them, and uploaded it again. I don’t think they even realise it’s still there, buried under layers of code and dead ends. The Railroad just re-appropriated the network and the tools, but they have no idea what they’ve got there.”

“And our PAM, what’s the skinny on her?”

“Well for one I think she knows exactly what they’ve got and how to use it, because she came with it. And she’s not a robot. She’s an AI. A sophisticated one too if she’s running predictive algorithm’s and making assessments. Choices not just programmed commands.” He nodded, yeah he’d picked up on that bit. Although maybe he’d not articulated it quite so well. 

“So, what she’s ‘General’ PAM?” he queried and the idea bothered him somewhat. It was starting to look more like his initial assessment might have been right on the money.

“Basically yeah. She’s the ‘eye in the sky’ and a fleet commander all-in-one. Old military spec, highly developmental, highly classified.” Sam paused. “I’m also fairly sure she’s the reason anyone got into a Vault at all. She was their early warning system.” She rubbed her forehead, “The signal, the one that we still hear throughout the Wasteland, the one that triggered in all the Vaults and set of the sirens 200 years ago?” Sam looked at him and he nodded, he’d already pretty much assumed the worse. “It was triggered from that Switchboard HQ they were set up in before here. They bought the machines with them, it’s buried deep but it’s still there and I know military code.” she explained how she’d managed to unearth that secret P.A.M. saw the bombs coming and I’m betting most people still breathing out here in the Commonwealth, all across America and God knows where else, owe her their lives.”

Jack nodded feeling a little relieved, life-saving robot was better than the alternative life-ending one. “Actually, that’s better than I’d hoped!” he added a little grimly, “I assumed she was the one that had seen the bombs coming and recommended a pre-emptive strike.” he let her into his dark musings. He supposed there was no reason the Railroad wouldn’t know that too, that Tinker Tom guy had known his way around machines. Which meant they’d wisely kept the info and P.A.M. to themselves.

Sam went quiet and he sensed a ‘but’ in her response. He glanced her way and she kicked a stone, her lip bite out in full force, classic Sam avoidance. Sometimes he preferred when he didn’t understand things quite so well. 

“You said Vault-tec was really the Government?” he pressed. Sam nodded, and he sighed, her little trip to Vault 75 was like the gift that kept on giving. “And PAM was Government issue,” he reasoned, following the thought through to its obvious conclusion “so they were waiting for the moment to strike, and herding people into those oh so homely Vaults when it was time.”

Sam grimaced and looked up. “I don’t think its all that big a leap Jack, to say that Uncle Sam may have fired first, in a war that ended life on this Earth.”

Jack shared her fairly forlorn expression. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that they’d been true blue soldiers for the Government. Seeing what it was capable of was all kinds of sobering, even if it was a parallel world, because this place had just enough same-ness of home, that it made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle … “Ah crap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: 
> 
> Fallout Trivia – Kellogg was indeed located in the game following a trail of blood and cigarettes by our friendly canine Dogmeat – I broke that though so I had to adapt it a bit. Plus it never made sense that he could have vanished in a timeline weeks ago but his trail was still fresh!
> 
> Yet another Faction introduced, 2 of the 4 in game in play now.
> 
> I’ve taken a few liberties/extrapolations from fallout fan theories and the real-world to make a more interesting narrative around PAM.
> 
> Last chapter and the end of part 1 coming up next!!


	20. Rock n Roll Wasters

[10 months after P4M-523] 

Sam watched, with a big smile splitting her lips, as the group of Minutemen hoisted Jack into the air, carrying him aloft up into the newly built central tower and generally giving him hell. She followed bemused and pleased into the castle grounds as they celebrated the life of a man that she felt had earned a little celebration. Oh, he’d kill her for telling them it was his birthday but she was counting on him being too drunk to remember soon enough.

“Don’t think I won’t remember this come your turn in a few months Samantha!” he bellowed back at her and she smirked. Promises… promises, she was quite fond of the idea of spending this birthday with Jack, if she was honest. Although the Christmas in between their birthday’s might be harder, she thought; trying not to think of the friends and family she’d normally spend it with. Sometimes she found it harder to think that they’d been here almost a year now. Lost but somehow found. At least in Jack’s case.

The group carrying Jack aloft reached the top and deposited him pretty much on the floor as a few of them wrestled and he bounced up like a grinning maniac as she entered, laughing at his clear amusement despite his protests as he spotted his presents. It seemed everyone had been more than a little willing to put something together for their General. He reached for her and she accepted his arm around her as he slumped onto the chair they’d set up for him, centre stage. A bundle of sacks and boxes around him, Jack laughed like a kid, clearly delighted as he reached into the first one and pulled out cheese and wine from one bundle. The good stuff he liked all the way from Abernathy.

“Oh damn yeah.” he smirked, “Okay whoever this was, gets the next two days off watch!” About a dozen hands shot up and Sam rolled her eyes. 

“It was Preston.” she muttered, with a thumbs up for the more reserved man at the back of the group who tipped his hat lazily. 

The next gift he was practically assaulted with was a hat that was thunked down over his head and he sat there for a moment grinning and patting it. “Is this the hat?” he asked, staring at each grinning face. He whipped it off and turned it in his hands and barked out a laugh as Ronnie Shaw, their resident old gun who’d served with the last General, doffed her own genuine military cap at him and swiped the black tri-corner hat off him.

“If you’re going to wear that peacock uniform General, you really need that hat. Otherwise you’d look ridiculous half dressed like that!” she pointed out and indicated for him to lower his head, as she seated it on his silvering hair with a little more reverence and ceremony, to a chorus of more cheers. Apparently, Ronnie had found it stashed in an old washroom in one of the lower basement levels of the castle; she’d cleaned it up specially for him. She’d even sown four stars right into the brim to go with the ones on his frock coat collar. The last time anyone wore it was nearly five years ago, back when Ronnie served the last General. 

By all accounts General Becker hadn’t been the strongest of leaders. Ronnie, wizened old solider that she was, had wanted to be sure that Jack was made of sterner stuff before handing over the ‘official’ garb. Seems like he’d finally proven his mettle to her. Personally, Sam thought she’d waited a little long but she’d been more than pleased when the woman had approached her and offered it. Sam had suggested waiting until the party. She thought the group would appreciate the symbolism of it. After all, this party wasn’t just for Jack, it was for all of them.

Jack stood, head to toe now in the Minutemen General’s uniform The dark blue overcoat with four gold stars on each side of the collar looked good over the mostly white shirt she’d forced him into this morning. That had been harder than arranging this damn party in secret. She had to promise him god knows what because she wasn’t taking no for an answer, despite his pout. The combat armour and belt strap across his chest with the heavy-duty combat boots finished his ensemble now with the slightly worn tricorn hat on his head. He looked quite possibly even more handsome than in his dress blues she thought, which was really saying something. Jack stood to attention as one everyone saluted, Sam included. The stars shining on his collar and hat made her tear up slightly. He looked back at her and reached out giving her cheek a stroke.

“The cadets and the Nerd Squad got you a little something special. You should open that next.” she replied, not wanting to spoil the moment with displays of emotion that weren’t joy as she swiped at her eyes. Because Jack’s life and the fact that he’d managed to reach this damn birthday deserved to be celebrated.

“This one was a team effort.” Sam grinned at the small group that Jack had dubbed the ‘Nerd Squad’. Except this group were a lot handier with guns and heavy artillery than McKay or Bill had ever been. They whooped in acknowledgement as they stepped back to reveal the dust covering over a large item at the back of the room, which they had been concealing behind them.

Jack gave her a questioning look as she pushed him towards it. “This isn’t going to go boom is it Sam?” he joked, but she could see that his fingers were practically twitching with eagerness as he approached it and with a flourish pulled off the cover.

His eyes went wide. “Oh for Crying Out Loud, a damn robot!” he exclaimed and looked back at her, after all this was typically the type of gift she’d expect from him. But this wasn’t just any robot. This had taken her and the Nerd Squad a full two days to get here, walking the damn thing back through some pretty shitty parts of town. And that was only after liberating it from the Shamrock Taphouse, on some very sketchy info from MacCready’s less reputable old friends in Good Neighbour. But they’d done it and she had spent the last week in secret, stealing away to get this thing in fully working order.

“What the hell is it?” Jack was looking bemused as he took in the excited faces and her smirking back at him as she leant against the door frame.

“The good kind of robot, General.” she laughed and the Nerd Squad activated the machine, which whirred and lifted its head with a mechanical clunking.

“Hello. I am Buddy, your drinking companion.” it beeped out in a fantastically robotic voice that was very ‘Danger Will Robinson’. 

“Would you like an ice-cold beverage?” it asked and Jack’s eyes widened in realisation. His head shot to her, then the Nerd Squad, then to each stupid smiling grimy face around him. 

“You guys got me a beer robot?” he asked sounding a little choked up and a hell of a lot excited. His eyes dancing and that soft happy smile she so rarely saw cracking his face. God she loved him.

“You only turn 50 once General!” Preston laughed and clapped him on the back. “Hell, yes we got you a beer robot!” he yelled and that pretty much started them all off chanting and hooting yet again. Jack gave her a look and mouthed ’50?’ She smirked. So she’d shaved a few years off. a 50th birthday had sounded far better than 53rd when convincing them to go after the robot through Gunner territory.

Sam glanced once across to Captain Ronnie Shaw, the woman tipped her beret to her and stepped out to walk the ramparts. She’d take care of the watch tonight, make sure the General and the Minutemen got their sorely needed down time. Sam gave her a lazy acknowledging salute and strode back into the fray. An ice-cold beer was deposited in her hands and she couldn’t help but savour the taste of it as it hit the back of her tongue. This one was freshly brewed, Buddy doing everything, so long as they kept him stocked with the ingredients. There was even the possibility that if they could get their hands on the brewing recipe for Nuka Cola, she could get him to brew that for them as well.

Jack was stood amongst them and she hovered on the perimeter, watching him enjoy this moment. His moment. Everyone wanted to talk to him, clap him on the back. A few of their more hard-earned settlers had even arrived and were turning their castle grounds into an honest to God party. She’d even put on something approaching a dress, although she wasn’t certain there was enough fabric to officially call it that. Well, it was red and sequined and hugged her curves, stopping somewhere along her thigh and plunging down her neckline, which made her feel feminine for the first time since she’d been out here. Although she’d not been quite brave enough to take off her long leather coat that was concealing most of it, just yet. The best she’d been able to do on the shoes were some black pumps but it was better than combat boots to complete the look. She’d had to trade with Piper on their last trip out to Diamond City with an interview about life before the bombs. Sam personally thought she’d got the better part of the deal as Jack’s eyes kept stealing to her more than once. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise, turning to find his dark stare on her, travelling down in a sweeping caress that left her in no doubt he appreciated the effort.

She’d made the classic mistake of asking Jack what he wanted for his birthday. His utterly tongue in cheek reply had been ‘to unwrap you’. Sam figured she owed it to him to make the paper on his ‘gift’ at least a little more appealing and a little less ‘apocalyptic chic’. The way he was looking at her Sam thought she might have succeeded. Particularly when he’d stealthy snuck up on her and managed to get her out of the coat with a distracting kiss. He’d left her feeling hot and bothered, and half naked. He’d better not lose that coat though; she threatened him with her eyes as he smirked and spun away, her jacket over his arm. 

All in all, it was a pretty good party. There was food that wasn’t terrible, someone had gotten prime cuts of Radstag and Brahmin meat specially for the occasion. The smell of barbeque was wafting across her as she sipped her beer and politely spoke to everyone and anyone as they all clamoured in. The folks from Vault 81 had provided a bunch of seeds and an entire crate full of Donapple trees to be grown right here (so long as they got a cut of the profits – the only crop outside the Vault permitted, given how well they’d taken off across the Commonwealth).

Jack got to unveil the party piece with a flourish; her recent labour of love, a fully restored honest to God jukebox. Restored with a little help from her friends and Valentine if you could believe it. His connections with just about everyone had been the only way she’d been able to get some of the records.

There was singing, bad singing and even worse singing. Jack might have even belted out O Danny Boy at one point, much to their amusement given as they’d got no idea what he was singing about. Although he did threaten to shoot the idiot that turned on the first few bars of ‘Atom Bomb Baby’ until Preston had hastily switched tracks. Sam laughed as he pointed his finger at her accusingly from across the room, his eyes twinkling. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him this happy, not even back on Earth. It was like amongst these people, the lost survivors at the ass end of a world, he’d finally found a place to belong.

The party carried on with no hint of slowing down into the evening and she managed to extract herself from Sturgess, who’d travelled up for the occasion and was trying to talk her ear off about generators. Suddenly she was distracted, thankfully so, by the feel of his arms slipping around her waist and Jack’s head dropping to her shoulder. It was the first time since he’d stolen a kiss, and her jacket, that he’d managed to free himself for more than a few moments. She hadn’t pressed because she hadn’t wanted to monopolise his time. After all he was their General as much as he was hers now, and she got to have him the rest of the time. The thought still made her a little giddy.

“Sam baby.” He kissed her neck and she heard the multitudes in that; how happy he was, grateful, horny, drunk and missing her just a little. She turned in his arms and smiled up at him, stroking his for once smooth-shaven cheek, and admiring the outfit again now that it had loosened up a bit. The white shirt beneath bringing out every defined muscle of his chest, the trim of the jacket showing off his broad shoulders and narrow waist and highlighting the steel colour of his temples next to his black as coal eyes. He was such a beautiful man she mused, tracing her finger along his cheek and down his arms to grasp one of his hands in hers.

“Enjoying your birthday General?” she teased and he grinned, leaning in to kiss her soundly, his hand sliding around her cheek and keeping her close, all of course to the sound of rapturous whoops and applause as he lifted her with a handful of her ass until she slid back down to spare his knees.

“Oh yeah.” he sighed, pressing his forehead to hers. “There’s beer, good company and you, in that smoking dress.” Jack traced the outline of it almost featherlight, his fingers dancing down her spine. “Dance with me?” he asked and she shook her head at the plaintive sounds of the warbling music.

“Not to this. Help me pick something.” She tugged him forward by his hand, which was unnecessary because he had latched onto her waist like glue, until they were staring into the restored duke-box blaring out its awful Fifties swing tunes. 

Jack tutted, “I seriously doubt there’s anything worth listening to in there.” He muttered, “Nothing as good as listening to the sounds you make when I do this.” He started kissing a path behind her ear and stroking the side of her ribs. She grasped his wandering hands and placed them on the jukebox, smiling up at him.

“You might be surprised Jack.” she murmured and he went a little still, turning to look at her face then into the machine with a curious grin on his lips. Jack searched the names of the songs before he hit upon the one that he recognised, one that she’d added in specially. His eyes widened comically and she felt his breath hitch.

“You didn’t… how did you?” he asked sounding somewhat shocked and she was pleased she could still do that.

She shrugged as though it had been no big deal. “Band in Diamond City that Travis set me up with … they had to suffer through me singing the damn thing several times to them before they got the hang of it, but it’s not a bad cover.” she admitted a little embarrassed. They both knew she had a voice like a cat in heat. She thought Travis might have mis-sold her vocal talents a little to them. Her attention returned to Jack who’d gone oddly quiet.

“For me?” he asked, sounding a little awed, and as she turned he kept her within the circle of his arms and pressed her closer into the jukebox. Sam inhaled sharply, the sensation of being near him, feeling her body against his, was still raw after so many years denying themselves this, and after so many months out here getting to know exactly what they had been missing those years.

“Well I wouldn’t sing for just anyone.” she reminded him.

“Thankfully.” he teased smirking and she smacked his chest lightly. Jack leant over and selected the record she’d added to the play deck before she’d sealed the casing. The first beats started and his grin widened as everyone else around them took note of the distinctive opening chords that she suspected were nothing like anything anyone had ever heard here. Jack pulled her off the jukebox and further into the open green space of the castle grounds. His arms sliding around her waist as she curled her hand around his neck, as they began to sway and move together.

“You do realise you may well be introducing Rock ‘n’ Roll to a whole new generation here Sam, hell a whole world.” Jack laughed, giving her a twirl and she tossed her head back and let out a laugh that she felt right to her core. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that. She’d made this gift for Jack but right now, in his arms, listening to the familiar song and lyrics that seemed to pound into her soul, soothing it like nothing else, she realised how much she’d needed it too. 

“Don’t stop believin’…” he sang along as the sounds of the guitar strummed out and Jack smirked, eyebrow quirked, clearly realising how much trouble she’d had to go to.

She tried not to be self-conscious as they danced, but it was hard when literally everyone had stopped and was staring somewhat open mouthed at them. These people didn’t dance and they had never heard anything like what was coming out of the speakers. She knew because when the band had final gotten the hang of what she’d wanted, they had looked at her like she was either insane or the second coming. In the end they hadn’t even asked for caps. They were just pleased to have some inspiration to play something, anything else. That and she might have also invented the electric guitar in this world, or something close to it anyway, because there really was no other way to do this song justice.

“Strangers. Waiting. Up and down the Boulevard….” he rasped in time with the music and she grinned as he spun her out and back into him again, pressing her close, his hand at her back. It was perfect, the perfect moment. As the song ended she was suddenly glad of her foresight and the bands eagerness because she didn’t want it to end.

“You know there’s a bonus track.” she whispered in his ear as the song came to an end. He clutched her tighter with a sound close to a groan, pressing a kiss to her temple as a new series of chords started. It had been tricky but she’d even got the singer to add a bit of funk to his voice. Her lips curved into a smile as the song’s familiar notes had her body moving almost beyond her own control.

“Oh you minx.” Jack smirked, “You do realise I might have to get a Carter exclusive performance of this, just to see it myself.”

“Not a chance.”

There were some whoops starting from the crowd as they woke up out of their stupor and began to dance alongside them and Sam couldn’t help but laugh as Jack swung her around to the sweet sounds of Elvis’ Burning Love. Granted, with a Bostonian accent it lost a certain something, but it was the best damn thing she’d heard since they’d landed here. 

“The King… really?” Jack laughed and spun her back into him to suddenly dip her and plant a kiss on her lips that he deepened quickly, as she held onto his hair, burying her fingers in it and holding him close. Holding onto this moment where they were happy and as carefree as she imagined they might get.

“I’m glad you like it, because there’s a B side.” she grinned as he picked her up and spun her around in his arms, the idea clearly thrilling him. Elvis died out much to the clear disappointment of everyone around them and Sam couldn’t help the wild energy that filled her as the gentler piano chords of the next song started. Jack stilled and stared at her speculatively.

“Queen…? My, my I’m learning all sorts about you tonight Samantha.” He grinned though as the toe tapping tune picked up and suddenly the two of them were swinging about like teenagers at a prom, shouting the lyrics to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ at the top of their lungs.

“Cause I’m having a good time, having a good time!” he bellowed spinning her more wildly as she held on tight.

“In a rocket ship on my way to Mars…” she rasped against his lips. 

“Like an atom bomb about to oh oh oh explode.” He pressed back and they were kissing each other like there was no tomorrow. The music thumping now and she was glad they’d cleared everything lurking in the surrounding area, because the base beat alone would have bought the Mirelurks running. It got louder and more raucous and she found herself in someone else’s arms, Preston she realised lightly, as he swung her around. She hadn’t known the man could crack a smile that carefree, but he was grinning ear to ear now. Jack cut back in and they collapsed into each other.

“Happy 50th Birthday Jack.” she told him and he shook his head ruefully.

“53, you minx.” he muttered. “Lying to the Minutemen … you know I hear that’s an offence in these parts now?” he teased and ran his hand to her ass. “You do realise I’m 16 years older than you? I’m literally old enough to be your Dad.” he groaned in self-recrimination.

“Teen bride doesn’t seem your style.” she teased, stroking her hand through his hair roughly and tugging his mouth down to her lips again, where she could taste whiskey and Donapples. 

“What the hell are you doing with an old man Sam?” Jack stroked the hair that had come loose behind her ear and she patted his chest ruefully as his melancholy kicked in, probably the whisky staring to talk. He’d been more than a little tipsy when he’d switched out the beers for the hard stuff. He’d tried to get her to drink some of Borborov’s Best Moonshine, which apparently Valentine had sent with compliments from Ellie. Safe to say she’d run a mile from that bottle, that stuff was lethal she remembered fondly.

“Behave and maybe I’ll let you unwrap me later.” she promised biting her lip and causing him to grab her hand in an attempt to get them out of there. She dug her heels in. “It’s your party, you’re not leaving.” she grit out, “Too many people want to celebrate you.”

“Uh huh and whose fault is that?” he groused, his hands spanning her waist and letting her know just how much he was going to enjoy his present later. “I sure as hell didn’t tell them about my birthday.” he snipped, “I had a very different celebration in mind that hadn’t involved getting out of bed.” Jack buried his head in her shoulder and started making a path down her collarbones to her chest. She patted his cheek unsympathetically and slipped out of his grasp, leaving a lingering kiss to his cheek and then to the backs of his wandering hands.

“Go get us more beers Jack. You’re not nearly drunk enough for a party!” she exclaimed and shoved him back towards the crowds with a gentle boot to his ass. Calling him Jack still felt weird when she was giving him an order. He turned back, his eyes boring into her. ‘I love you’ he mouthed and she felt her lips curve upwards, blowing him a kiss back. 

Jack was instantly swept back up by the crowd and she crossed her arms and leant back, content to watch and kiss him when he came back within arm’s reach, depositing a beer in her hands before he was dragged off again. Despite his gruff exterior, Jack was a natural at entertaining the men and women who were suddenly eager to hear more about the music ‘back in the day’. A somewhat easier task than doling out the war stories they used to want to talk to him about. It had always been tricky talking about that stuff because it was the wrong wars and often wrong damn planet, which generally pushed his story telling limits, especially after a few beers. The music though was safe enough to maintain their cover story, although she was starting to suspect they could have told the Minutemen that Jack was an alien and they’d have brushed it off, much like MacCready had with her.

But the music was a little bit of home she could give him, a little bit of her too she supposed. They didn’t often get much time to just talk. Their down time tended to be spent trying not to tear the suddenly precious clothes off one another. They’d both seemed to mutually agree that eight years of getting to ‘know’ the other person was enough ‘dating’ for anyone. But he’d been better, more attentive at letting her know what he was thinking and sometimes feeling since the Sub. Since she’d finally accepted that their best last chance of getting home had been shot to hell. If there ever really was such a thing as ‘accepting’ that.

Right about as the party was winding down, or up, depending on your definition, with the last notes of Journey petered out of the Duke Box, Jack let out a shrill whistle bringing everyone’s attention to him. There was a slight rumble of protest before a hush descended. He stared at each group, turning on the spot and she realised he might actually be about to give a speech. That had to be a first, voluntarily anyway from him.

“I’m not one for speeches.” he raised a beer and paused. “Which given the irony of me making a speech tells you how drunk I am…!” he raised his beer again to a chorus of whoops. “But seriously, I want to thank you, all of you, for standing here with us. For pushing back for decency and order out there.” Jack took a moment and looked down at the bottle in his hand. “For having each other’s backs when everyone else looked the other way.” There was a cheer that went up. 

“And for the beer… mostly for the beer!” he exclaimed and they all cheered even louder and she raised her own bottle, patting Buddy on the shoulder as he stood passively beside her. 

“But I think there’s one more song I’d like to share with you all.” he announced. “Gonna need a little help with this one though.” Sam had a moments panic that he’d actually expect her to get up and sing again, which even the band had the good sense not too. He glanced her way and gave a smirk, knowing where her head was at; listing slightly on his feet, clearly drunk off his ass, which Sam thought was telling as to how much he’d come to trust this group and the setup here. 

Then he started to clap. Clap, clap, clap. Three rhythmic claps close together.

He indicated to the rest and slowly one by one they all took up the call and clapped to his beat. Round and round it went and Sam bought her hands together, grinning like an idiot as she started to stomp her feet to the double beat of theirs, recognising the pattern. Until the air was full of a thumping clapping beat that went round and round the assembled, mostly drunk, militia group. Then Jack let rip with his big Ol’ Irish voice to entertain them all some more.  
“We will, we will, rock you.” Jack’s voice rang out loud and gleeful. “Let me hear you saying… we will…!” Of course, they followed the General. Their voices rising above their claps and stomps until the sound was ringing out around the Castle. Every Minuteman taking up the call as it bounced from wall to wall, like the call to arms it was once more. 

Jack’s Minutemen. The last bastion of hope in the Commonwealth.

000000000

They were both fairly drunk when Jack decided to fireman’s carry her back to their room, wanting the last part of his birthday surprise. Sam had protested at him as she’d dangled behind his back, worried she’d possibly throw up and ruin the moment. Fortunately her stomach had survived all sorts of zero-G spin training, she could manage this. Besides she thought, aware of her own less than sober thoughts as her hands went out to squeeze his ass cheeks, he’d presented her with a lovely surprise of his own right now. His muscles tensed beneath her fingers and she grinned knowing very well that in seconds he’d give up his drunken search for their room and just find a dark corner. She didn’t want that, not tonight, so she regretfully released his ass, contenting herself to watch it instead as he moved. 

She hadn’t spent all this time and effort for his birthday, on finally getting the huge heavy duty-oak door carved and fit for their bedroom, complete with an actual huge metal bolt across it, to not make use of it. It had cost her the last of her rum, so she was damn well using it. 

Jack’s hands slid over her body as he came to a sudden jolting stop and manoeuvred her so that she slid down his chest, her arms locking around his neck as she stared at him; his grin spoke volumes. He pressed her against the door and then pressed himself against her; Sam wrapped her legs around his waist, trusting him to hold her.

“I didn’t thank you thoroughly enough for this present.” he groaned, burying his head in her neck.

“I think this one was as much for me as for you.” she admitted smiling as she reached down for the huge metal doorknob; Jack’s hands were otherwise occupied and she wasn’t inclined to stop him.

“I’m not talking about the door, Samantha.” he growled, in a slightly slurred voice, into her ear; his breath wet and warm, making her groan at the way he combined it with a thrust up against her. Drunk but not addled then, she noted with a pleased sigh. “Although right now I’m kinda enjoying it.” he added pressing her more firmly against it; his smile evident against the skin on her neck. “But if you don’t get it open in the next five seconds I’m going to put a hole in it!” he added with a nip to her neck.

Sam groaned and with effort, turned to get better purchase; feeling every inch of him mould itself against her as she waggled the heavy iron handle, managing to get it open. Horny and drunk or not, there was no excuse for ruining their hard-won door and the key to some actual privacy around here. Jack grasped her chin and turned her head back against his as he kissed her thoroughly. They stumbled though the now open door sending it slamming open with a bang which she internally winced at. Jack pulled back just enough to make a deliberate step over the threshold with her in his arms, giving her a suggestive eyebrow waggle as he did it and looking far too pleased with himself at the symbolic gesture.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah baby.” he smirked and promptly nearly dropped her on her ass as they crashed into the wall, his unsteady feet almost failing to hold them. Sam laughed and clutched him to her when she’d gotten her breath back, as he kicked the door closed without looking; his eyes intent on her.

“You sure you’re up for this birthday boy?” Sam teased, noting the way he was listing into her as she rocked back into him, unsteady on her own feet. In response he crowded her, one hand dropping to her ass to lift her leg up over his hip, the other beside her head pinning her as he pressed his ‘oh so up for it’ response against her. “I stand corrected.” she murmured, placing a kiss on his cheek and sliding her mouth down to his ear. “How about the bed though General Hotstuff, before we end up having to call a medic out?”

Jack shook his head, “Not moving.” he groaned as he lowered his head to her chest and just held her there. “Like it here.” She patted his head, running her fingers through his soft hair, wondering if he was really going to just pass out against her like this. If she was honest, she was okay with that, mostly. The fact that Jack O’Neill trusted her enough to be well and truly drunk with her was enough. In all the time she’d known him she’d never seen him let his hair down like tonight; always a measure of control left in him. 

His hands started sliding beneath her dress. “Where’s my jacket?” she hissed, certain he’d left it somewhere after she’d specifically asked him to take care of it.

“Buddy’s guarding it. I had one of the Nerd Squad reprogramme that into his protocols. Anyone touches that jacket and…’bang’.” he mimed with a one hand gun going off. Sam cocked an eyebrow, wondering if someone was going to genuinely get shot over her jacket, before she recalled Buddy had no gun, just an electrical shunt. So either his programming would go into a tailspin trying to complete the command and he’d do nothing … or someone would get a nasty shock.

“Would you stop converting my Nerd Squad to your wicked ways? I still haven’t managed to get them to stop laughing about the ‘boobs’ you pointed out to them when certain numbers are spelled backwards on a damn calculator.” Jack chuckled and Sam kissed him because damn him, he was a cute sappy drunk; she ran her hands over his face and pressed her forehead to his.

“Come to the bed and make love to me.” She reached down and grasped him by the belt of pants, using that to tug him along, figuring he’d move where his pants went if nothing else. He seemed happy to oblige as he followed after her, swaying violently at one point; she gently pushed him onto the bed where he landed with a relieved sound. His hands rose and he pressed the heels into his eyes. To this day she still had no idea how he’d convinced the caravan to strap a double bed to the back of two Brahmin and shift it almost piece by piece – mattress, frame, headboard. All of it now sat in their room, in a dilapidated castle, as a ridiculous display of civility in a broken world. But for Jack, who’d spent a lifetime camping out, a bed was a luxury. He’d told her, as he’d pinned her to it the first night it had arrived, that a bed and a lockable door was damn near close to ‘as good as it got’ out here. Hence the oak door gift which had been surprisingly difficult to obtain. Sam couldn’t argue with that. It was heavenly to know the bed waited at the end of each long day, even if they couldn’t share it as often as she would like.

“I haven’t been this drunk since we snuck out of bootcamp back in the day.” he muttered with a groan, “I remember it seeming more like a solid plan then.”

Sam kicked off her shoes and hitched up her dress, kneeling on the bed beside him. “You know you’re right? If we did this now, it’d be like me taking advantage of you when your clearly unable to make a sound judgement call.” She straddled him and ran her hands down his chest. “I guess it’s an early night and a cold shower for you?”

Jack’s hands went to her hips and he gripped her soundly. “Oy, I’m drunk, not stupid.” he grinned, “Passing up a sure thing with you … that would be a dumb ass decision.”

“Sure thing?” she grinned, running her hand beneath his shirt to his happy trail. “You seem awfully confident.”

“It’s my birthday.” Jack replied. “I’m turning 50 again don’t you know.” he grinned cheekily at her his dark eyes twinkling. 

Sam nodded, “Ah, well … birthdays are a special occasion.” She started unbuckling his belt and undoing the zipper, a novelty that she intended to make full use of. Her hand slid inside and Jack practically melted into the bed beneath her, his hands losing grip on her waist for a moment as a look of complete bliss crossed his face. Of the two of them, Sam was probably the more sober, given as her hateful body was starting to flush the alcohol already, but she had a few hours yet of happy buzz, and slightly uncoordinated movements to enjoy. 

Glancing up at his face, she realised more than anything, she just wanted to treasure this moment. Jack O’Neill, happy and carefree, utterly in her hands, trusting her implicitly. Ten months, that’s all it had taken … that and the end of the World … for their lives to change completely; to make this possible. Sam touched him tenderly, stroking him and admiring the way his throat swallowed; his Adam’s apple bobbing as he struggled to contain the sounds she wanted him to make. She leant forward and sucked on the skin of his throat, chasing that bobbling line and earning her a groan of contentment from him. “Let me make you happy.” she offered, knowing he’d done the same for her countless times, but resisted it for himself. Sam knew he didn’t like the idea of not being able to make love to her ‘properly’ as he called it, despite his ability to satisfy her just fine without needing what was currently in her hand.

“You make me happy.” he groaned, his voice slurring over the sounds but his eyes were bright and clear. Even drunk he was a contradiction.

“Happier.” she countered, trailing a path of kisses down his throat, abandoning the search for his skin beneath his shirt. She didn’t have the coordination for buttons right now, especially not those damn fiddly things on his ruffled shirt. Instead, her lips found the trail of skin from his belly button, and the dusting of hairs as she let them guide her down. He was drunk, or he’d likely not been so surprised by the sudden feel of her tongue swiping over the head of him; Jack let out a sound half like her name, half like a curse. She sucked in the length of him, lavishing as much love and attention as she could to the act, as she slid off the bed onto her knees; clutching his thighs to keep him still.

“Wait … don’t let me come … please. Inside, let me be inside.” he rasped, sounding almost desperate. Sam pulled her head back, admiring the firm length of him, her fingers tracing the shaft. He very rarely asked for anything during sex, so she always listened, despite the fact that she thought he’d have probably enjoyed it a hell of a lot more if he’d let her finish. Pressing a kiss to the tip of him she rose back up to straddle his lap. His hands slid back to her thighs and he palmed them gratefully, as he looked up at her. As she started to lift her dress up, he pushed up onto his arms, stopping her. 

“My present to unwrap … remember?” he teased. Sam let her hands fall away. A promise was a promise after all. Jack surged up and, with what she suspected might be a last-minute burst of energy, lifted her, moving them both back until he fell into a seated position against the head rest.

“Comfy?” she asked, faintly amused. His hands traced her back undoing the zipper or at least attempting to. Leaning forward, he kissed her softly for a few minutes; his hands fumbling. But she was in no rush. The sound of her zipper was loud in the air; he finally freed it and she shivered at the rush of air down her spine, chased by his fingertips. The reverence in his touch always shocked her. For a man capable of such devastating violence, when called upon, he could be so incredibly tender with her. With him, she realised she never felt anything other than treasured, which was a heady tonic. He was right of course, if they ever did get out of this, there was no going back. She’d never give this up, never give ‘him’ up again. 

The dress fell into a puddle at her waist and she sat there in his lap, letting him take his fill of looking. She’d long since lost any semblance of a bra, but Jack hadn’t seemed to mind that in the dress. Her naked breasts glinted in the candlelight of their room; she guided his head gently as he lowered his mouth to suck on one. Her stomach fluttered with delight at the touch. Even drunk he knew how to touch her. Her breath hitched with anticipation at the feel of his hands sliding over her thighs; brushing long fingers in a sweep against her covered crotch. It was rare they got this undisturbed time together, even at night. But Ronnie had promised that the area had been cleared; tonight they’d get their time, even if another nuke dropped.

His hands left her centre and she tried not to groan in disappointment at the loss. He wouldn’t leave her wanting, she knew that. His hands started a familiar path, tracing her scars, old and new. Her body had become more like his, littered with evidence of battles. Before this place her wounds had been largely internal; her body invaded countless times, changed to someone else’s purpose. She found she preferred the simple uncomplicated truth of a scar. The wound healed and she moved on, unbothered. She felt that Jack sometimes had more trouble with them than she did. Right now his fingers lingered on the recent bite marks along her forearm. He liked those least she thought, not because of the obvious impressions that left no doubt as to what had gnawed on her, but because they’d happened on his watch. Likewise, she felt the same about the ones down his calf, but he’d never hear of her accepting any blame. Equals they might be, or were trying to be, but out in the field, he would always be her CO and he couldn’t help but take personal responsibility for any injury. 

Jack cupped her breasts, or attempted to, pulling her back to the reality of his touch, however unsteady and uncoordinated it was right now; the only tell-tale signs of the state he was in. She laughed lightly as he brushed her ribs, amused by the ridiculousness of being drunk enough that they could barely do this properly. “Oy, no giggling remember.” he warned, smirking at the throwback … again, it never seemed to get old between them. But then the memory of being curled around him, dying and knowing she was in the right place even then, was as powerful as ever. 

“You have no idea how much I love you.” she murmured gently, stroking his chin as he nuzzled along the valley of her breasts, content just to be against her. Sam wanted to say more, to tell him everything she was feeling but the words choked in her mouth. She’d never been much good at expressing herself during sex, or in relationships in general. Jack though, if his eyes didn’t tell you, then his hands did well enough.

He sighed. “I reckon I have some, although I doubt it’s anywhere near as much as I love these legs.” he replied, his hands sliding down those very legs all the way to her calves before he rose back up to lift the dress gently over her head and discard it somewhere on the bed. His fingers traced the rim of her panties gently, teasing them both. He wouldn’t rip them. Underwear was far too precious a commodity for that, but the look he gave her suggested in another time and place they’d have been in serious danger. 

“One day, I’m going to buy you all the panties in the world … just so I can enjoy ripping them off.” he admitted quietly. She grinned down at him as he gently removed these ones, sliding them over her legs and tossing them carefully on to her dress. Apparently, they’d passed the wild horny drunkenness stage. She’d not really experienced this next stage with a lover before. The soft happy glow of contentment; the easiness there could be between two people who loved and trusted each other, when all their inhibitions were gone. It helped that here, in this castle surrounded by quite literally an army Jack had trained, was quite literally the safest she’d felt since falling into this world. 

Of course, he’d deny it if pressed; claiming it was for the good of the Commonwealth, and for decent folk that deserved some sort of life. But she knew he’d done this, all of this, as much for her and them as he had the cause. In typical Jack O’Neill style he’d appeared half assed about it, irreverent almost, but he’d had a plan. A plan to keep them safe and alive, no matter the cost. It had become apparent to her a little while back, but she hadn’t realised just what an asset it had become until tonight. Seeing each and every one of those faces out there, happy and healthy, alight with purpose and belonging, all because of Jack. He was a born leader.

A surge of affection and longing swept over her as she grabbed his hair and pulled his head back up to hers, kissing him soundly and letting herself get lost in the sensation. Her hands fell down to his shirt and she tried to divest him of it, wanting to feel his skin against hers. She was having little luck, pulling back to look at him when he placed his hands over hers.

“You might not want me ripping your panties, but I’m also quite attached to this shirt.” he shared, “Let me?”. She removed her hands and with one slightly disjointed movement he managed to get it over his head. Jack gave her a sheepish look as she unhooked it from his ears and added it to the pile. “That looked way cooler in my head.”

Sam pressed a kiss to his cheek, stroking her fingers along it and cupping those offending ears. “I think you’re plenty cool.” 

“Yeah, well you’re a nerd. I’m not sure that’s the compliment you think it is.” he smirked and slid his arms around her waist, pressing his now bare chest to hers, until she could feel the steady beat of his heart, a little faster than normal. 

“You like nerds. Admit it.” she pressed. Why else would he have taken Daniel under his wing? “Hmm … nerds.” he sighed, “Samantha, if they’d had nerds like you in class, I’d have paid a whole lot more attention.”

“Are you paying attention now?”, she let her hand drop to encircle his flagging erection.

“I’d say I’m all ears … but I’m really not right now.” he managed to get out. Sam smiled, loving that his jokes still made her chuckle. She pressed their foreheads together, wanting to convey the sheer intensity of what she was feeling right now to him. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was this place and the sheer emotion they’d all just shared outside, but she felt a little overwhelmed by it all. She wanted to promise him impossible things but didn’t dare, because it didn’t seem fair to, not when they might die tomorrow. But then, that had always been a risk.

“Can I make love to you Jack?” For some reason she’d assumed tonight would be a quick drunken fumble before they both slipped into an exhausted, blissful coma. But this … this intimacy, was as precious as it was unexpected. Although she didn’t know why she was surprised, this was Jack after all. He never did anything anyone expected.

He stared up at her, stroking her cheek with his hand until he’d cupped her jaw. “Don’t you usually?”. Sam considered the question seriously. Jack was the one who often initiated in their relationship. It was usually him that set the terms and the tone of their sex life. Not out of any reluctance on her part, but more because she was happy to led him lead in this. Grateful, she suspected, to have him in any way. But maybe a little of the intimacy she craved had been missing. Oh they’d had a lot of fun, but this … somehow this felt different tonight. Like the weight of it all was right there hanging over their heads, reminding them of how quickly everything had changed, how it could again. She wanted to cling on to this moment, to him. To reassure him, convince him, in a way she was certain he simply refused to accept, that she was in this as much as he was; that she loved him as deeply. Sam pressed her lips to his, featherlight, tracing a path over his mouth, to the corners of his lips and beyond; to trail his jaw, his cheekbones, looping her hands around the back of his head and holding him close whilst she traced a slow path everywhere. 

His words, in what felt like a lifetime ago in Sanctuary, still resonated. Jack’s confessions of how he’d tried to protect himself, and her, tried to push her away on and off this last 8 years. Tried to rid himself of what he thought of as his shameful desires for her; his betrayal of his position and uniform. She’d never wanted to be his shame, and it hurt to know for certain that he’d thought of his feelings as a weakness. She’d been mortified to realise that of course that was how he’d feel. How he’d twisted himself up wanting her, wanting what he couldn’t have. The morality of it all took her breath away. Only Jack could somehow twist loving someone into a moral issue to brow beat himself with. She now knew why he’d blown so hot and cold. He’d hated himself for feeling ‘feelings’ and hated her for being stupid enough to feel something back for someone like him. Pitying her for wanting a wash up broken old solider that should have known better than to break the Chain of Command and sully her career with cries of favouritism. He still had her on that damn pedestal. A part of her worried he’d never let her down, that he’d always think of himself as unworthy, when in truth he was the one moving mountains out here. He always had.

“I don’t think you really know … don’t understand how much I love you. You have me on this pedestal Jack.” she reminded quietly, stroking across his lips with her thumb; tracing up his strong nose to his intense eyebrows. “But you’ve always been a larger than life figure … untouchable, unknowable.” she rasped against his lips, leaning in and looking up to stare into dark, slightly hooded eyes. “I’ve wanted to know you like this for so long. Wanted to be enough for you, but I honestly didn’t think we’d get here. And I’m sorry.” she confessed. “If I ever made you feel like you weren’t enough. You deserved better. I should have waited. I would have … it just hurt too much not to have you.”

Jack sighed against her lips as his hands traced a path down her arms, and across her ribcage, his eyes not leaving hers as he mapped her body. “Hey, you’re here now. I can touch you like this.” he admitted with a soft smile. “That used to hurt the most you know, not being able to touch you. I always want to touch you.” he confessed, his words only a faint slur now. Even though she could taste the whiskey still on his breath, she got the feeling he was sobering up. He shifted and she inhaled at the feel of him pressing between her legs, the head of him slipping into her desperately slowly as he dropped his hands to her hips, rocking her forward. Sam wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and slipped her tongue into his mouth as he slipped into her and they moaned together, drinking in the sound of each other. 

She knew what he meant. Knew that in another time and place, stone cold sober, he probably wouldn’t be confessing that to her. Not that it was a secret. That was one thing she’d known well enough about Jack O’Neill, he’d always been handsy. Physically affectionate with friends and colleagues. She knew, because she’d been the one he couldn’t touch, not even casually. Sam had felt the absence of his touch keenly for years. The hugs he offered so freely to everyone else, the fist bumps, the gentle touches for support. All she’d ever had was the ‘accidental’ brush of his fingers as they’d exchanged folders. A hug for a devastated friend needing a shoulder to cry on. Even when the rules had allowed it, he never had. She realised now that it must have killed him not to touch her the way he’d wanted to, through all these years. 

Sam let her mouth do the talking for her; pressing her body against his and holding him as close as physically possible, rocking herself until he was seated fully inside her, until she couldn’t get him any closer. “Like this … did you want to touch me like this?” she rasped, starting to rock gently over him, their pelvis’ bumping together perfectly like this; sending bolts of pleasure through her as his hands rounded her ass and held her firmly.

“Sam, I just about had a heart attack if you’d so much as brushed your hand across my chest back then. Touching you like this.” he bucked up with a firm thrust that made her gasp as she clenched around him. “Well this is all my birthday wishes right here.”

“Me too.” Sam murmured and he grinned, his fingers tightening its grip on her ass. She kissed him again, sucking his tongue into her mouth as they made love to each other. His one hand rose to press against the centre of her back keeping her there. Bitterness and regret threatened to wash over her, because this, them, it was worth her damn career. A career she’d lost now anyway, It had been for nothing in the end, all this denial. Sam gasped as he thrust a little faster and she let her eyes flutter shut; she was going to come. The friction he was creating between them was perfect and she clutched the back of his head. Okay, so maybe not for nothing. She might never have known just what she had in Jack if she hadn’t been forced to deny it for so long. Sam didn’t want this moment to end. She knew that was impossible but like this, it felt almost like it didn’t have to.

“It’s okay Samantha, I’ve got you. Come for me.” Jack whispered, dropping his mouth to her neck as she felt her head falling back; her body rocking almost beyond her own control, pulled in by an ancient rhythm. The primal part of her that had once been ‘touched’ and had chosen Jack was pounding inside of her chest right now, wild and awake, and so very right. 

“JACK!” she cried out, her head falling back in his hand as he sucked on her pulse point and she came apart for him; her legs trembling and her body rocking with a lost rhythm as she clenched tightly around him, willing him to follow her. He shuddered and she felt the moment his body fell limp, his hands pulling her onto him as they lay there against the headboard, panting and sweating and grinning from ear to ear at one another.

“Not bad for an old man huh?” he laughed and she grinned, kissing him and biting his lips. 

“53 years young General. We should all be so lucky to get to your age and be so spry.” He huffed and wrapped both arms around her rolling them so he was lying over her and she was trapped beneath. His head went to her chest and he fell still, content it seemed to use her as a pillow.

“I take it we’re not washing up then?” she sighed, dropping her hand to his head and stroking him affectionately.

“Shhhh, too comfy.” he grumbled, his arms tightening around her as he shifted his weight so that he was no longer ‘on’ her, but she was curled impressively into his side. She wasn’t going anywhere; not that she wanted to. This … this was perfect. 

“Goodnight Jack. Happy Birthday honey.” she sighed, placing her hands over his around her waist, threading their fingers together.

“Hmmm … night.” he mumbled against her temple, pressing a kiss there. “Thank you for my party, but you know, this was all I needed right?” he added, his voice drifting off a little. “Samantha Carter. In my bed, in my arms, smelling like sex…” he sighed, nuzzled into her, clearly content. “Best birthday ever.” he murmured and she couldn’t help but smile.

“Maybe next year we should set the bar a little higher.” she offered half joking, but he was already breathing steadily behind her. 

Sam didn’t want to disturb him, feeling him fall into a heavy sleep behind her. A sleep like that was as much a gift out here as anything. Sam leant back into his warmth, smiling affectionately to herself and clutching his hand to her chest. He wasn’t wrong. This was a great ending to a birthday. She just hoped he’d get to see another one. Out here, nothing was simple, not even hope. Then again, once upon a time, falling asleep in the arms of Jack O’Neill had felt like a snowballs chance in hell too and yet here she was, against the odds. Maybe, just maybe, once in a while, hell had a snow day. But to get home … that might take one hell of a winter.

End of FalloutGate Part 1 - Sanctuary  
To be continued in Part 2 - Commonwealth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So thank you everyone for coming along on this ride with me so far. Thank you in particular to my Beta Neverbefore whose been a fantastic help these last few Chapters since joining me.
> 
> We've reached the end of Part 1 - although I may be tempted to add a little Xmas Bonus Chapter being as its been such a crappy COVID year for us all! 
> 
> But this isn't the end for Jack and Sam - we will return in the FalloutGate Part 2-Commonwealth where we will be introducing some new factions, some new companions and a whole host of Sam and Jack feels. Hope you join me for that in the New Year!


	21. Nuclear Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to the Wasteland everyone. Just in time for a very Merry Christmas. Don’t say I never get you anything nice!

[2 months after Rock & Roll Wasters; 11 months after P4M-523] 

[Christmas Day – The Castle (Minutemen HQ), SE Boston Wasteland]

Hands curved around her hips making Sam moan softly in contentment; feeling the faint dusting of hairs against the chest of the man behind her. “Hmm.” she managed, sliding her hands over his, “Good morning.” She sought out more of his warmth as sleep clung to her. There were worse ways to wake up than in Jack O’Neill’s arms; she’d experienced her fair share of them, so she didn’t intend to waste this feeling.

“Merry Christmas beautiful.” Jack murmured pressing a kiss to her neck. She snuggled closer, feeling blissfully peaceful as his hands slid around her torso locking her more firmly against him. It took her a moment to realise that he was naked, a smirk curved her lips. He was many things, but subtle when it came to their sex life, he wasn’t.

“Merry Christmas … did the elves steal your pants again Jack?” she laughed gently as he huffed and sucked on her pulse point.

“Once, I lost them once!” he declared with mock indignation in his voice. “And they weren’t lost. They were stolen, and we both know the only damn reason I’d taken them off was because someone accidentally set them on fire!” he huffed, “This time my pants were on fire for a very different reason.” Sam could hear his grin and she chuckled at him.

“God that was corny, even for you Jack!” she muttered reaching back to tug at his head and find his lips for a moment. He was smiling too much to make a proper go of it though and she gave up, enjoying the feel of his hands tracing a path up her rib cage. Right until he started to tickle.

Her breath hitched and the giggle erupted, damn it! He’d found that spot far too early in their relationship and hadn’t let her forget it. “I’ll have you know Samantha, that those were some of my best lines. I don’t like that you don’t appreciate them.” She attempted to roll away but he followed. Pinning her to the bed and tickling her ruthlessly as she tried to squirm away; her hands shoving at his hips, trying to find a suitable area on him to attack. Having no choice, she shrieked and attempted to buck him off.

“Stop!” Sam gasped and he flattened over her, trapping her with his very warm, very naked body. “I give.” she murmured as his mouth found hers. She wasn’t too bothered and after a few seconds, she wasn’t thinking of it as losing. Waking up to laughter and kisses was already an improvement on most of her Christmas mornings.

They parted naturally as she ran her fingers through his steadily greying hair, “What happened to my Christmas Day lie in?” Jack turned his head into her touch, enjoying it as her finger played with the softness; she gazed up at him expectantly.

“Oh, we’re definitely doing that.” He smiled, pressing a kiss to her cheek and running his hands down her sides, lingering on his favourite spot at the sides of her breasts, or ‘boobs’ as he liked to call them, with his impish little grin. Her younger self never would have believed that she’d end up, willingly, with a man that referred to her anatomy like that. But then her younger self had been an idiot, what did she know?

Jack leant in, his lips brushing her ear and making her shiver as his weight pressed more firmly over her. “I’ve told them, on pain of death, we are not to be bothered today.” he nodded gravely. “I explained that Christmas Day was a religious holiday back in the day and we’re observing it. All day and most definitely all night.” His grin grew practically into a leer and she smiled, tugging his head down to capture those snarky lips of his again. She’d fantasised about his lips far too long and now they were all hers, she had no intention of wasting a second by letting him chatter inanely at her, even if he was telling her good stuff. 

If she was honest with herself, this was probably the best Christmas morning she’d had … well, ever. At least since her mom had died. Christmas after that hadn’t exactly had a lot of cheer, and for most of them as an adult she’d woken up painfully alone. Or worse, next to someone utterly wrong for her. Last Christmas with Pete was somewhat hampered by their argument on her refusal to take time off. He’d managed to drag her away for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but that was all, and she hadn’t exactly been in the holiday spirit. After all, she’d just let her Replicator-self run amok, which was the reason they no longer had a viable weapon against them. She hadn’t felt like celebrating. It was made worse by the nightmares that had resurged from her little trip into her tormented duplicate’s mind. Seeing the same torments that Fifth had used on her come to fruition. It had been a horrible period in her life; Christmas had mostly been a blur of guilt and nightmares that poor Pete had no hope of pulling her from. She couldn’t believe that was only a year ago, it felt like several lifetimes ago now. It was strange that even though she had more things in her head now to induce nightmares, she slept pretty soundly. A part of her wondered if that was because she no longer needed to be asleep for her nightmares to come for her … or if it was because of the man nuzzling into her now.

“Hey?” Jack’s lips brushed hers and he stroked her hair. “Where’d you go?” he asked gently. Sam blinked, realising she must have zoned out.

“Oh God I’m sorry, I was …” she considered lying, to save his feelings and preserve the moment he’d been building between them. But that was what they’d agreed not so long ago, not to do. If she was feeling feeling’s he wanted to know. “I was thinking this was the nicest Christmas morning I’ve had in a long time.” she told him honestly, stroking his cheek, hoping he knew that it was entirely because of him. 

“You looked pretty sad for someone enjoying themselves.” he pointed out, “What else were you thinking?” he pushed gently and she sighed.

“I was thinking that it was a lot better than last year, which ranked up with my worst after what happened with the Replicator duplicate.” she admitted quietly. He shifted his weight a little, so his hands were holding her a little more firmly, giving her the comfort she hadn’t realised she’d been craving. “The worst Christmas is still the first one we spent without my Mom. Dad didn’t even come home for that one. I think it was just too painful for him. We spent it at my Aunt’s and Mark was so angry he got drunk for the first time and spent it yelling about my Dad.”

Jack sighed and dropped his forehead to hers. She felt something shift in him and he looked up at her quietly, as if he was deciding something. “Well, we’ve only just woken up and this is already the best Christmas for me since Charlie died.” Jack murmured and Sam cupped his cheek as he stared at her letting her see the pain. 

“That kid loved Christmas.” He smiled hesitantly pushing through the pain to the good memories, “I mean what kid doesn’t like Christmas right?” He smiled gently, but there was a pain in it that Sam suspected would never leave. “Some Christmases I couldn’t be there … mostly when I was stationed away. Charlie used to tell people it was because I was escorting Santa across American airspace. But we had a rule … I’d never be stationed away two Christmases in a row, and I kept that damn promise!” he told her proudly. She knew it must have been some feat back when he was at the whims of the Airforce. 

“So, when I was there, we made sure it was a full blown one. We’d get the biggest damn tree we could. Once I overestimated and it ended up in the back . It’s still there actually, at Sara’s. She planted the damn thing … it’s a beast now. Anyway, we had to go back out and get the ‘second’ biggest one we could find for inside.” Jack laughed gently as she held him, knowing how much it meant that he was able to share his memories of Charlie. It was something she’d never pushed, and he’d never offered. Sam had wondered if she’d ever know that part of his life, and she’d been okay with not knowing. He was entitled to his past. Yet here he was offering it freely; she thought that might be her real Christmas gift. She threaded her fingers through his, giving them an encouraging squeeze as he took in a breath, clearly struggling but wanting to continue.

“We’d watch Christmas cartoons, play charades … he was terrible at that, worse than Sara even, which was saying something.” His voice cracked a bit and he paused, blinking quickly; she felt her heart break for him again. “Then we’d take the blankets up to the deck and we’d eat marshmallows, drink cocoa and stare at the sky … sometimes through the telescope. For Charlie though it wasn’t about the stars. He wanted to see if he could catch a glimpse of Santa heading back to the North Pole. He figured that if there was ever a time to see him, it’d be then. Whilst everyone else was exhausted from Christmas, or too busy playing with their stuff.” Jack’s voice trailed off as his fingers played gently with her hair, twirling the long blonde strands around his fingers absentmindedly, but with a purpose she recognised as a deliberate distraction technique.

“It sounds wonderful.” Sam knew she had no idea of the pain of losing a child. The only thing she could compare it to was the pain of losing a parent, and that still left her breathless with grief even today. “I’m sorry that you didn’t get more Christmas days with him.” she offered, not certain he’d accept the sympathy from her, but she wanted to give it all the same.

He smiled wanly. “Guess I have to count myself lucky that I had what I did for even that brief time. Some people never get to experience that.” Jack leant in and kissed her gently, tracing her lips with his and stroking her mouth with his tongue until she was wrapping herself around him. She didn’t think she’d ever compare to a Christmas with his son, but she could try to at least make him feel loved and cherished.

His head rose and he paused, his lips a little red and swollen from their kisses, but his eyes were deep and dark as they fixed on her. “Your enough. You know that right?” he asked a little hesitantly, as though afraid she was going down the exact path she was; she startled at how often he got it right. “This, with you, it’s enough. I don’t want anything else. Charlie is gone and however much that hurts, that’s my past”. He lowered his head to let their noses brush. Sam held her breath, feeling they were on the cusp of another emotional wall crumbling. “But this, right here … this is the future and its every bit as wonderful.” Sam was almost breathless as his hands started to stroke her skin, moving with intent to divest her of the cotton t-shirt and pants she’d worn to bed. An outfit which had no chance of keeping out the sudden winter chill that had descended these last few months. At least not without the fire he’d lit in the hearth, and his arms around her. She realised now why every other man had simply failed to measure up to Jack O’Neill. He was the most incredible man; everyone else really had been settling. Sam’s heart felt practically full to bursting. She hadn’t known she could feel like this, nothing in her other relationships came close. 

“It doesn’t matter where we are, this is what I want more than anything. I want to spend the rest of my Christmas mornings wrapped up with Samantha Carter.” he continued seemingly unaware of the tears she was blinking out of her eyes, as she struggled with the depth of emotions he was evoking. Undeterred he trailed a path of kisses along her now naked chest, dipping between the valley of her breasts. She arched up into him at the touch of his warm rough tongue around one of her nipples. “In fact, every morning with you is like Christmas.” he added, pressing a kiss to the thoroughly teased nipple as he pulled back to admire his handywork before moving onto the next one.

“That is probably the nicest compliment I’ve ever been given.” she murmured, “And I’m including the Asgard Nebula named after me in that.” Sam stroked her fingers across his stubbled jaw, “I’m not as good at saying it, or the big romantic gestures. I mean give me a particle accelerator and I could wax poetic about it all day, but give me a Hallmark moment and I can’t seem to get the words in the right order.” She stared down at his open brown eyes. There was no judgement there, no expectation even. “What you said though, that’s how you make me feel too. I don’t think I even knew what love was before I let you in.” she admitted, hating that it sounded corny, but she figured he deserved to know he was every bit as treasured. 

He was grinning softly up at her, his eyes twinkling. “Oh, I don’t know. I quite like your technobabble sweet talk, as you well know.” he admitted as he nuzzled under her breast, making her gasp at the feel of his teeth there. 

“Besides, if you like my sweet talk, you’re going to love what I’ve got in store for the rest of today.” He pressed a kiss to the breast he’d just worried pulling back to look at her. “I have big plans.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, “You know, when we do eventually get out of bed.”

Sam laughed, the sound erupting from her full throated and he chuckled into the soft swell of her breasts again, before he stole the sound entirely as his hand slipped between her legs. He cupped her cheek, pressing his pelvis against her as he curved his fingers until she was clutching at him desperately. “I love it when I can make you laugh.” Jack rasped, tracing his thumb over her lips. and she sucked it gently between her teeth. His fingers crooked and she gasped sharply as he gazed at her. “I like it even more when I can make you sound like that.” he admitted and she brought his face down closer to hers, holding the back of his head. She tried to reach for him, to run her hands down his chest, but his hands were cleverer than hers. She came apart around them in a ridiculously short amount of time, her body arching up under his weight. When his fingers slipped out of her to be replaced by the long hard length of him, she was all but lost for words. She loved him. Utterly. Hell, they could die tomorrow and the fact that they’d had this would be enough, to know that you could be somebody’s everything. 

“I love you Samantha.” he rasped into her ear, moving his hips in an unhurried rhythm, bringing her back to the edge and then slowing down to leave her behind. It was maddening and wonderful. She recognised it as his attempt to keep them in this moment, before nature took its course; she was right there with him, wanting to hold on to it. Then the pressure was building in her again and she felt an irrational, completely terrifying feeling that she was going to lose him, like he was slipping through her fingers. He was wrong, this wasn’t enough. She needed more, something tangible, something … 

“Marry me!” she cried out and Jack jerked violently, his hips thrusting dangerously as he came inside of her, his hands clutching at her as he groaned. His spasms dragged her over the edge too as she clung to him gasping, riding out her own orgasm beneath his warmth. She lay there quietly, feeling him inside her and the twitch of his muscles as he levered himself up to look at her in quiet disbelief. Sam could relate. She could hardly believe the words had come out of her mouth. They’d barely been in her brain, although she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t considered it, more than once. It wasn’t even a new idea. Everyone already thought they were married anyway. But they weren’t and a part of her, the part of her that had longed for normality … a family, husband, a home, it was clawing its way up to be heard again. Normality was pretty much gone, but being married to a man like Jack, that was still on the table. She wanted this to be ‘real’ somehow; their relationship still had a dreamlike, Christmas morning feeling and that worried her.

“Come again?” he asked, then his eyes widened on realising what he’d said, and she giggled helplessly, thrown out of her fears by his obviously unintended bad pun and the slightly mortified look on his face because of it. “Oh God … I honestly,” he laughed for a moment, before closing his eyes in exasperation with a deep groan, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just…” he propped himself up on his arms above her. “Samantha Carter, I’ve made many a woman scream in my time, but never like that!” he teased her with his wry, slightly smug grin.

Sam shook her head a little helplessly, smiling back up at him and feeling a wave of panic. She hadn’t meant to ruin it. She ran her hands through her hair and closed her eyes, trying to shut out everything, including his clearly confused face at her sudden shyness.

“Oh, you do not get to wiggle out of this Sam.” He was grinning down at her as he peeled her hands off her face, holding her wrists. His eyes were sparkling. “Did you just propose to me during sex?” he asked, and she was slightly mortified by the teasing tone in his voice. Oh God! … he wasn’t going to let her live this down. She bit her lip; his eyes followed the movement.

“Bit of a cliché, huh?” she went with finally at his extended silence. His fingers threaded through hers and he pressed them into the bed either side of her head. Jack leant over her, staring at her intently, a question written all over his face as to what had prompted this.

“A bit,” he admitted wryly, “and we know how I feel about those.” he acknowledged, but he still sounded a little shocked. There was a hint of a curve to his lips; he looked mighty pleased despite his apparent confusion, that smugness she’d first glimpsed creeping back in. 

Irritation grew inside her along with affection. Damn, he was going to make her spell this out. Sam propped herself up on her elbows as he leant back, slipping from her as he flopped down onto the bed, tucking an arm behind his head. “I figure, we’re already a cliché,” she started, “I mean, the whole unresolved will they/won’t they of our work lives, and then the ‘pretend’ marriage out here. I figure one more cliché wouldn’t kill us.” She grinned at him, getting nervous for his answer, “Are you going to give me an answer?” she prompted.

“You’re serious?” he asked looking at her again like she was certifiable. Maybe she was, but she honestly wanted to marry him.

Sam was slightly affronted by that question. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she countered, he had just quite thoroughly reminded her why she was so in love with him.

He swallowed and something leaden settled in her gut. What if he didn’t want to marry her? She’d just selfishly assumed … “Oh my God, you don’t want to marry me!” she managed to grind out, feeling mortified as a flush took over her. How could she have gotten it so wrong?

“Stop!” he barked, turning over to look at her, his hand on her abdomen stilling her as he crowded her suddenly with his body and with the sudden flash of emotion she felt from him. “Sam, baby …” he sighed, lifting a hand to trace her cheek. “You said our ‘pretend’ marriage was a cliché … but, I haven’t been pretending anything. You’re it for me.” 

That hadn’t been what she’d been expecting; she blinked, trying to process the thought. “I don’t understand?” she managed quietly. Surely if he already thought of her as his wife, like half the Wasteland did, he should have no issues with making it more, official?

“I guess I’m just worried … if you marry me out here, like this, I’d always worry that it was this place, the circumstances, pushing you and backing you into a corner. I don’t want to be your consolation prize. Because you’ve always been my jackpot.”

She couldn’t help it, she grinned. It was oddly sweet, in a completely Jack O’Neill kind of way. “Really … that’s what you’re going with, I’m your jackpot?”

He shrugged, smiling back faintly, seemingly relieved she was finding it suddenly amusing. “Hey, I’m a simple guy, I go with what works.”

Sam shook her head. “Jack. Our marriage out here is pretend, no matter what half the Wasteland thinks. That’s not good enough for me. I want to … God I don’t know, I just want us to have something real, you know?” she floundered, “Besides I’m the one asking you remember. I’m not backed into a corner here. I’m choosing you.” she huffed. “You, insufferable asshole!” Honestly! … comparing her to a damn jackpot when she was trying to make a gesture.

Jack’s lips curved up at her cussing. He leant in and kissed her lips, ending her irritation with one sweep of his tongue. “Oh, I see … declarations of love in one breath and name calling in the other.” He slid sideways to nuzzle into her cheek, “You sure we’re not already married?”

“Do you take anything seriously?” Sam snipped, huffing and trying to roll out from under him. Jack sighed and let her sit up, as he lay back and propped a hand behind his head, staring at her, the picture of bemused contentment.

“Not if I can help it. But tell me why it matters? I mean it’s not like there’s a church, wedding dresses, cake, reception … our nearest and dearest.” he pointed out, “Why marry me when the only people that will know is us?”

Sam stared back at him and reached down to stroke his cheek, leaning in to kiss him as his words reverberated around her brain. “That Jack is exactly why. Because it is just us. It matters to me. I want you. I want to know you’re mine. I don’t care what everyone else thinks out here. Just what you do.” She stroked his chest, directly over his heart.

“You don’t already know?” he asked looking unsettled by that. “I mean don’t get me wrong, I think your possibly certifiable for wanting anything to do with me, let alone long term.” He grinned up at her self-deprecatingly as she stroked his cheek. This was why she needed this, why he did. Because he could never simply take it for himself He’d said it himself; he felt like he was backing her into a corner. It had to come from her.

“Marry me Jack. Right here, right now. No church. No witnesses. No dress and no rings. Just me and you and this big old bed. Naked as the day we were born, promising ourselves to one another.”

He sat up and slid an arm around her waist tugging her onto his lap as they sat there wrapped in one another. “Offer like that, how could I resist?” he smiled, brushing his lips just over hers, hovering there as her blue eyes scoured his face; she wanted to hear the words. “If you’re serious about wanting this old fool, then Hell yes! I’ll marry you Samantha.” Sam felt her heartbeat wildly as she slid her mouth over his, wanting to taste his smile. It was so perfect. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him look happier, and the knowledge that it was because of her was elating.

“God, I love you.” she hummed and kissed him again as he slid his arms up her back and they held each other. Sam felt that tiny part of herself, that piece she had held back for fear of this being more than she could have, finally give itself up. She blinked back tears as she pressed herself into his neck, willing herself not to cry right now. That was a cliché too far.

“Well, in case agreeing to marry you was too subtle a clue, I love you too.” he sighed, running his hands through the back of her hair softly and holding her there. “Although, if we’re really doing this, I’m going to feel a bit short changed if I don’t at least get to see you in a dress.”

Sam glanced down at her naked self. “I’m sorry, are you actually asking me to put clothes on?” she asked with an eyebrow arched in disbelief.

Jack looked heavenward, “God help me, I am.” He shook his head, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll even put on that fancy tie you found in that back-street clothes shop.” he offered and Sam laughed gently kissing his chin.

“Hey, you’re the bride.” Sam teased, “Whatever you want … babe.” She smirked and he swatted her ass as she climbed off his lap and headed for the trunk she kept her belongings in, at the foot of their bed. Jack stood up and hopped out of the bed.

“I need pants … much more dignified.” he muttered and gave her a grin before disappearing into his own trunk. She shook her head as he found his ‘best’ worn brown leather pair and shimmied into them, whilst she turned and held up the little pale blue homemakers flared dress he’d liked so much back in Diamond City. 

“This do?” she queried and he gave her a look that was impossible to misinterpret. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Sam blushed and slipped it on, ignoring the fiddly little buttons on the back for now as she turned back to see his eyes on her. “Oy,” she turned away, “You’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding remember?”

Jack made a strangled sound and she felt his arms slip around her as he tugged her back into his chest. He placed a row of kisses down from her temple to her lips, turning her in his arms. “Just a peek.” he murmured. 

“Fine … then put that shirt on. The one with the ruffles down the centre.” Sam grinned. She could almost hear the pout. “And the General’s jacket. If I’m marrying you, I want to see those stars on your dress blues.”

“I knew you’d be a Bridezilla.” he groaned, but did as she requested, slinking away to retrieve the outfit which she knew he secretly loved wearing. “Since we’re being so demanding. You may as well have one of your gifts early.” He pointed to the bottom draw of the reclaimed chest of drawers they had shoved in the corner of the room, most of it was filling up with his collection of hats. Sam eyed him as she made her way over to it, excited.

“What is it?” she asked a little surprised he might have something for this occasion, and a little thrilled by the idea.

Jack gave her a scowl. “Fairly sure that me telling you defeats the purpose of wrapping it.”

“You wrapped it?” she laughed, wondering in what. When she opened the bottom draw she got her answer; it was some sort of pretty flowery cloth. There were a couple of items in there, but this was the only one wrapped. She grinned back at him. “Are all these for me?”

“No … for my other girlfriends.” he deadpanned, toeing his boots on. Apparently if they were doing this, he wanted it done properly, sort of anyway. Sam plucked out the carefully wrapped gift that he’d secured with some string into a big looping bow. A wooden box sat next to it; she ran her fingers over it curiously and he tutted.

“That’s not for now.” he chastised from just behind her and she removed her hand guiltily. “Seeing as you’ve totally one-upped me on Christmas day n’ all, with a Samantha shaped wedding gift, I need to pull out all the stops!” Sam shook her head grinning but did as asked, pushing the draw closed.

“But this one’s for now?” she asked holding it up. Jack shrugged, popping his hands into his pockets and looking eagerly at her. Intrigued Sam undid the string and carefully peeled back the cloth. Nestled inside the carefully packed cloth was an actual set of black lacy panties, and an intricate underwired black bra to match, decorated with little blue swirls. Sam’s lips curved into a smile as she brushed her fingers over the delicate material. She hadn’t seen anything like this since landing here. She honestly had no idea where he’d gotten it. Her fingers traced the bra. As a soldier she’d sometimes considered these things torture devices, or a damn inconvenience, but being unable to have one for the last six months; she’d missed the inherent femininity of it. “Is this a gift for me, or you?” she smirked looking up at him as he approached her, stopping in front and staring down at it.

“Little of both.” he admitted. “You like it?” he glanced up at her, “They’re brand new. Sturgess helped me out a little. Apparently, underwear like this still has something of a following up in New Vegas. He knows a guy.” Jack admitted and she leant in to kiss him.

“I love it, thank you.”

“Good, because that was genuinely the weirdest conversation of my life. Sturgess was also freakishly good at guessing the size of your …” he made a globe like gesture towards her breasts. Before reaching out and taking a handful of each, “Just checking he got it right.” he murmured.

She laughed and swatted him away, “Cute.” She rolled her eyes and picked up the bra, holding it up. Something thunked onto the wood and she glanced down. There was a little pouch tied with a ribbon. Sam ducked down and picked it up. “What’s this?” she asked, and he frowned down at it.

“I have no idea … I don’t think it was from me. But if it’s good, we’ll totally claim it was.” he declared as she held the pouch in her hand. It was light; something clinked inside of it. She tossed it to him. “Open it would you? … whilst I get all gussied up for you.” She winked, “Need to have something nice on under here for you to tear off later.” Sam laughed at his delighted look and turned her back to carefully slide the panties on and reminded herself how to do up a bra. It had a clasp unlike anything she was used to, but she got it figured out. “Can you help me with the dress?” There were a row of little buttons at the back that she had no hope of doing herself. She turned smoothing down the front; expecting some sort of wolf whistle from Jack. Right then it didn’t matter to her at all that the dress was pale blue with little flowers on it, rather than white. It had a square neckline that showed off her newly bra-enhanced cleavage, and a flared bottom that barely came to mid-thigh; showing off the legs she knew he loved. She doubted he’d care if she didn’t look like either of their ideas of a bride right now. She still felt like one and it was amazing, mostly because of the man who was in front of her.

But Jack wasn’t looking at her. Instead she found him staring down at his upturned hand, a folded note in the other. Sam approached and he closed his hand making a fist of it, looking up and giving her an uneasy smile.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” she asked suddenly nervous. He thrust the note at her and she frowned, taking in his clearly troubled expression and white knuckled grip before she read the note. It was in a fairly horrendous scrawl, but she could just about make it out.

‘To the one with stardust in her hair. You might be needing these.’

‘P.S. Thanks for all the jet.’ Mama M.

Sam’s head shot up and her mouth opened as she stared at Jack. Mama Murphy had stashed something alongside Jack’s gift when it had been sent from Sanctuary. “What was inside?” she asked Jack, but he’d gone somewhat pale.

“You’re still looking, right? … for the snowball” he asked, and Sam blinked. Odd time to mention their hope in hell’s chance of getting home, but she supposed, given as Ol’ Mama had been brought up, she could understand it. 

“Of course. Now will you show me what she put in there?” she insisted, stepping forward and wrapping her hand around his fist. Jack stood there, in his blue tailored jacket with the gold stars on the collar, the white ruffled blouse and the tie hanging loosely round his neck, looking like he’d stumbled into a civil war re-enactment. She had honestly never thought he looked more handsome than right now. Especially with that half terrified, half elated expression on his face as he smiled at her, his eyes finally scanning over her outfit with appreciation.

“You look amazing.” he breathed, his eyes settling on her face. 

“Thank you. You look very dashing yourself.” she gave him an appreciative once over, not taking the distraction, her fingers curved towards his fist, asking again.

“Don’t freak out.” he added cautiously, lifting up his clenched fist between them and Sam lifted her eyebrows.

“I think you’re doing that enough for the both of us right now.” she pointed out and he grimaced.

“I just reckon, maybe …” he coughed nervously, “maybe we should take her more seriously.” Jack turned his hand palm up and opened it. Sat there, were two perfect gold rings. Sam took a moment just to stare at them glinting in the flickering lights of the fireplace and the electric lamps dotted around the room.

“I think she might have just one-upped us both on the whole Christmas gift thing.” she murmured and Jack nodded mutely. Sam reached out and picked up the larger of the two rings. Then she touched his hand, turning it over, her thumb brushing the rough skin of his weatherworn knuckles, hesitating as she held the ring there. If this fit, she wasn’t sure what that meant, but she had the strangest notion that it would.

“Can I?” she asked, and he looked at her like she’d spoken in another language.

“Sure.” he croaked and coughed, “I mean, yeah, let’s do this whole married thing properly, right?” He gave her such a hopeful look that she couldn’t help but reach up and tug him in for a kiss.

“Smooth.” she grinned up at him, “You know for someone who’s thoroughly got the girl … enough that she’s proposing and slipping a ring on your finger … you can be so incredibly obtuse.” She looked down and hesitated at the tip of his fourth finger. Tracing hers over it, admiring the tapered length; she’d always thought he had the most beautiful hands. Sam slipped the ring on and it caught; a little tight at the knuckle. She pushed a little harder, oddly pleased that it wasn’t a perfect fit. That would have been too weird. At least it wasn’t going to come off easily. They both stared down at the ring for a moment, a gold band against his tanned skin. There were some symbolic gestures that held a weight she was certain was tangible. She had thought, when he’d pinned his own silver leaf onto her, that it had been their defining moment, the height of what they could have. But here they were.

“I’ll do better.” he murmured and she looked up; an old guilt and self-doubt flashing across his face. That look at least she could read, knowing that he was remembering another woman and another ring for a moment. “I promise Sam, I’ll be a better husband this time.” He looked plaintively at her and she felt her heart break for this broken man. 

“Jack, you don’t have to prove anything. I know that. Why do you think we’re standing here doing this? Besides, you’ve been my longest relationship ever, nine years.” She grinned up at him, “I reckon we should get cake for that.” Sam smiled, running her finger over the band. He gave her a gentle smile back, brown eyes on hers as he grasped her hand and bought it up to his lips, kissing the knuckles, as he opened his fist again to reveal the smaller ring. She was oddly calm. She’d always thought that when she finally did this, she’d be a bundle of nerves, her mind going a thousand miles an hour. But all she felt was still, staring into his big brown eyes. 

He leant forward and kissed her, and in the same movement slid the ring over her fourth finger. Her breath caught and she froze for a moment. This was how it was supposed to feel when you were overcome with desire and love for another person, when it felt like you were finally whole. The last time a man, the last two in fact, had placed a ring on her finger it had felt curiously anticlimactic. She’d kept expecting to feel different, or that it would make the relationship more ‘real’ to her somehow, but it had never happened. Granted those had been engagement rings, promises. She and Jack had made their promises a long time ago, when they had agreed to lock it all up in a room until the time was right. This was the promise finally come full circle. That door was wide open and about to be locked shut with them both inside for good.

“Perfect.” he hummed admiring it next to his own, and she couldn’t help but smile. In fact, she hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d said yes. It was strange; her cheeks ached a little with not being used to the expression.

“I feel like I should say something profound.” she admitted.

“I remember vows … and a priest.” he prompted. His voice had lost some of that hesitant quality, but there was a roughness there she recognised as emotion. He looked up at the door suddenly, as if expecting Mama Murphy to have sent them one of those too. “Suppose that was a bit of an ask,” he admitted with a shrug. “Not sure what good a priest would be out here. God clearly left the planet a while back.” he pointed out grimly.

Sam ran her hand up his chest, tracing the defined planes beneath his shirt and up to his neck, where she started to do up the tie. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to do one of these for him, and she felt her lips quirk at the fond memory. “I wish Dad was here to see this.” she admitted, and he sighed, his hands dropping to her arms to stroke their gently.

“If it’s all the same, I’m glad he’s not.” Jack replied, “He’d have shot me.”

Sam laughed lightly, finishing off the simple dark blue tie and letting it fall neatly down his chest to compliment the colour of his jacket. It was probably the last and only tie he’d ever wear if they didn’t leave this place she realised, patting it gently. “Dad loved you. Sometimes I think he liked you more than he liked me, and a hell of a lot more than he liked the idea of Pete.” She snickered and Jack grinned his ‘do tell’ smile, which she wasn’t going to humour him with. “He’d be honoured to have you as a son-in-law.” Sam told him with certainty.

Jack shrugged. “Maybe, but only because Selmac’s made him soft.”

Sam nodded, “At least they have each other still.” Jack opened his arms to her, holding her close as she let the feelings about her father wash over her. She didn’t want to cry, not now. “Your dress is perfect.” he told her pressing a kiss to her hair, “let me get these.” Jack stroked his hand down her back, where the little row of buttons remained open. Sam turned in his arms. A strange mixture of excitement and serenity was washing over her. She tried to hold onto it, certain she might not feel anything close to it again out here. Jack drew his finger along her spine gently, circling the skin just beneath each button as he closed it, as if teasing himself by hiding her skin from view. She shivered at his touch and he slid closer, letting her feel the heat of him as he surrounded her.

“I feel like we’ve done this in reverse.” he rasped against her ear. “Sex, rings, outfits.” he said as she turned in his arms to see the way his eyes were crinkling at the sides, beaming at her. “Damn you’re beautiful.” he hummed, “I mean, I knew that … but wow.” He brushed the hair over her shoulder and stood there to admire her a moment. She had to admit it was incredibly flattering to think he still wanted her, could look at her like that after so many years … especially out here when she wasn’t exactly at her best. Then again, so was he. 

She reached up and stroked down his arms. “And you’re gorgeous. I always thought so. I just had no idea how beautiful you were in here too.” She placed her hand over his chest, over his heart, with her newly glinting finger. He gripped it with his own and the metal bands rubbed together; the sensation of the metal there would take some getting used to.

“I want to do this properly.” he told her, giving her hand a squeeze. “Samantha Carter.” he said, his voice going gentle. “I want you to be my wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse. In sickness and in health.” he stated firmly. She nodded her willingness to do it like this, understanding his need to swear something to her, and to make a vow. He was a man who had always lived by his word.

“I promise to love you, cherish you with everything in this old soldier’s battered body and soul. Until the day I damn well die … and then some.” he swore and she laughed gently, smiling as he added his own flare to the words he’d clearly never forgotten. Sam smiled up at him as he stroked her cheek with one hand, keeping the other captured with hers against his chest.

“I’m yours, always was, always will be, so long as you’ll have me and long after I die.” he finished. Sam lifted her hands to place over his as a tear leaked out of her eye; a tear that he carefully brushed away. She wanted to kiss him, but it wasn’t quite the time, she knew that; some things were traditional for a reason. Although, they already had the rings on, so maybe traditions were open to a little interpretation out here.

He paused and she inhaled. “My turn?” she asked nervously. Jack nodded bemused by her sudden shyness … or was it anxiety? … she wasn’t sure. But she hoped that this would be the first and only man to see her, on her wedding day, promising herself.

“If you like.” he replied staring softly, his hands not releasing her face. “Although, I don’t care what you say, hell you only have to take me for a little while, or until my back gives out.” he teased and she smiled, sniffing a little as more tears came.

“Sorry, I’m crying like an idiot.” she murmured, breaking her own promise to herself, but he reassured her as best he could, with his touch and smile, brushing her skin gently until she was ready. She took a breath. “Jonathan Jack O’Neill … with to L’s” she started, holding up her fingers to indicate the correct spelling, just as he used to. His grin was wide, his eyes dancing as he accepted that she ‘got him’ too.

Sam had a moment of panic. She didn’t know the words. She’d been studiously avoiding them with Pete; they had just never felt right to her. Given as they had already broken with tradition, this was just for them, so she intended to speak from her heart. Jack would appreciate that.

“You are a pain in the ass,” she started, and his eyebrows rose. She smiled hesitantly. “You drive me insane sometimes, but you are exactly what I want, what I need. You make me a better me. I want you to be my husband, so that I’m always the best version of me.” she admitted and he shook his head ruefully at her, clearly amused. “I want you to be mine, so I can show you all the incredible things about you. So I can love you openly, completely, the way you deserve to be loved.” She stroked his cheek as he looked down a little misty eyed at her.

“For better or worse.” she promised, because she knew he worried about that part, as she stroked his lips with her thumb, fighting the urge to kiss him again. He kissed her fingers instead and she wondered if that was in the spirit of this thing. “In sickness and in health, weak knees, fertile balls and all.” Jack drew her in closer, smiling. She thought he’d like that bit, but she could tell he wanted her to finish, almost as badly as she did. She wanted to stand there and finally be his wife, even if they were the only ones that acknowledged it. She was half afraid that something would burst through the door, or explode … something to stop this, because surely they weren’t about to catch a break on this? Or was this their Christmas Day miracle? 

Nothing disturbed them and Sam closed her eyes for a moment. She decided not to press their luck. “I promise I’ll love you Jack, always. I’ll cherish every inch of you, for every moment we’re together like this, because I’ve waited so damn long for it.” she rasped. There were no more tears, she was clear eyed and staring straight at him. “Everything I have, everything I feel, every damn thing I make, build, borrow or steal is yours … until the day I die.”

“And after?” he prompted with a shrug. “Just in case … you know pesky ghoulification on this Earth and miracle resurrections, sarcophagi and all that jazz.” he pressed. “Wouldn’t want it nullified, by a quick case of a little death.” She grinned back at him. They were both completely insane she realised.

“I thought you didn’t care what I said?” she prompted and grinned at his mischievous grin, ‘oh he cared’. “Fine and whatever the hell comes after.” she added.

“Sweet.” Jack replied, his lips curving upwards. “So by the power vested in me, as a USAF Brigadier General, Asgard Ambassador for the Fifth Race, Ancient descended human-being and General of the Minutemen, I declare us hitched.” he said loud and clear to the air, as if daring someone to intervene and tell him he couldn’t. “Hell, one of those ought to be good for something, right?” He winked at her and they both stood there for a moment, the silence ringing between them.

They’d done it.

“Husband and wife.” She voiced what she thought was both their shock, recognising the awe in her own voice that perfectly reflected her feelings. Wow.

“Hell yeah.” he rasped. Then he was kissing her. Her husband pressing his lips to her mouth and dear God! … if this wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. 

“You’re a genius you know that …” he whispered against her lips, “Mrs O’Neill.” She didn’t even bother to pretend surprise that he was completely in sync with her thoughts again. Well almost.

“Dr Colonel O’Neill-Carter.” she corrected with a lip bite, giving him a throwback and he growled. 

“You can be that at work. It’s Mrs O’Neill between the sheets.” he teased, tracing his tongue along the seam of her lips. 

“Care to test that theory?”

00000000000

Heaven, Jack decided, was a roaring fire, a full belly and Samantha O’Neill-Carter wrapped up in nothing but a blanket, with a ring on her finger. The little Donapple tree that he had potted in a big bucket and dragged indoors for them to decorate, with a mostly functional set of reclaimed fairy lights her Nerd Squad had fixed up, sat in the corner, flashing away. He curled his arm around her waist and dropped his head onto her shoulder. He’d had a pretty spectacular plan before Sam’s little ‘surprise’; asking one of the cooks to whip him up something ‘festive’ for dinner. But, given there was no turkey, no one had ever heard of a sprout and he wouldn’t touch what they took for figs these days with a barge pole, they had done the best they could. It had turned out pretty well; meat, veg and potato, washed down with a lot of very festive warmed wine Although, he thought they might have overdone it on the cloves. Jack even had the band Sam had been so keen on, belt out a few Christmas numbers, which he’d given to Travis as a Christmas present to the Wastelands, to play over the airwaves.

Currently ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ was crooning away; he’d treated Sam to a dance to the frankly painful version of ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’. They’d taken liberties with some of the words, but neither of them had especially cared. The tune had been just about the same which was all they’d needed, especially several drinks into their little private party. Sam had enquired about whether she’d be treated to a Mariah Carey special track and he’d glared solidly; his voice didn’t get anywhere near that pitch, not even for her.

Sam now though, was well and truly tipsy, which took some doing with her metabolism. She had this adorable little pink tinge to her cheeks, and her eyes looked a little unfocused. Currently she was pouting up at him. “Why can’t I have it?”

He rolled his eyes. “Because it’s not your birthday yet. You can wait four measly days until then surely?” he argued half-heartedly Right now she could ask for the damn moon and he’d attempt to lasso the blighter down for her.

She huffed dramatically and her eyes darted to the draw where she’d seen the little wooden box, which had held her actual Christmas lingerie gift. The outfit he had very, very, carefully removed from her earlier; neatly tucked away for now, stored safely for a time when he was less inclined to want to tear it off her. “Please.” she whined and it was such an unusual sound coming from her that he actually felt himself relenting slightly with a grin. One day and he was already whipped.

“You really want it now? Because you’ll have nothing to open on the day!” he pointed out, talking to her like he’d done with his son and finding that faintly amusing. Drunk Sam was childish Sam. Since this particular state didn’t last all that long, he figured he had maybe a half hour to make thorough use of it. 

“It’s Christmas Day, and our Wedding Day … why not just roll it all into one big party day!” she exclaimed, suddenly listing sideways into him; he wrapped an arm around her to keep her steady.

“You’re a cute drunk you know that.” he mumbled into her hair.

“Hmmm.” she replied and he rolled his eyes.

“Stay put. For the love of God, don’t attempt to stand.” he said as he got up onto his own feet. He’d promised her, on pain of death, that he wouldn’t make a big deal out of her birthday. Apparently, she’d had more than enough of people fawning over her since the whole ‘possible Ghoul cure thing’. She was now trying to claim that his so called ‘50th’ birthday bash had been a special one-off event, something to bring the Minutemen together. But in the private of their own company, he couldn’t see the harm in trying to spoil and celebrate her rotten. Of course, she knew him; she’d already rasped into his ear all the naughty little birthday surprises they could try if he gave up on the party idea. Who was he to argue with a hot blonde with the brain the size of a planet? Especially when she was explaining in vivid detail exactly how she wanted to spend her birthday.

Jack reached down to the draw and pulled out the box. Sam’s very fine Christmas presents to him had been a particularly smoky whiskey, and the recovery of his prized Grognak comics, which she’d ‘borrowed’ to pay MacCready. To make up for it she’d thrown in some brand-new titles; starting him a new collection of ‘Astoundingly Awesome Tales’ and the ‘Unstoppables’. The latter of which he planned to call Nick up about at some point; to explain the whole Silver Shroud/Detective Noir thing to him in vivid detail. How could the guy not realise he was a walking cliché?

Sam’s gifts were courtesy of a sneaky little trip out without his knowledge to Hubris Comics local publishing house. She had taken some of the more avid readers from the Minutemen and sworn them all to secrecy, in the dead of night. The place was apparently still mostly intact and surprisingly well locked down, from what she’d said when she had dismissed his concerns about going without him. That probably explained the mint condition pages she’d bought back. There was a fairly large present still sat under the bed waiting for him; he’d spied a suitcase with a bow on it. She’d told him he had to wait until later, which was frankly cruel and unusual punishment. He supposed given as they’d already made use of his first gift, eaten the meal he’d had arranged, and were growing tired of the Christmas songs, she deserved the little gizmo he’d picked up. It wasn’t often they got the chance to get each other much, or just spoil one another. Hell! out here, someone presenting you with a new toothbrush was liable to make you tear up and hug them soundly … which he’d asked Preston not to mention to anyone.

He dropped down into a cross legged position opposite her and carefully placed the box down between them. She smiled, her fingers tracing the wood. It was roughly the size of a shoebox, and he knew from the look on her face that he’d stumped her, which was its own present.

“Do I get a hint?”

He grinned. “It’s a superpower I’ve always wanted?” he offered and she frowned, her eyes dropping to his crotch surreptitiously. He shifted giving her a smirk. “Another one I’ve always wanted.” he added, chuckling, apparently his dirty mind was rubbing off on her.

She gave him an assessing once over and he could see her brain ticking over. “It’s much too small to be a jet pack.” she commented and he grinned wider.

“You know there’s a sure-fire way of knowing.” He patted the box and she gave him a scandalised look.

“Where’s the fun in that?!” She bit her lip, “Can I shake it?”

“That would be a no.” he scowled. “But if you don’t open it soon I will.” He reached for it and her hands shot out snatching the precious box.

“Oy.” she bit out, as it had the desired effect. Sam placed the box on her lap and slowly lifted the lid. Her eyes lit up and he grinned, feeling a lightness in his chest he hadn’t in a good while. This was how Christmas was supposed to be; to see someone look like that at a gift you’d gotten them.

“Jack … is this one of those stealth-boys?” she asked sounding a little breathless. She flipped open the lid and it sat there innocuously. 

“Yep.” He popped the ‘P’ as she bought her hand to her mouth. 

“Oh my God!” she squealed and launched herself at him, which was frankly the most impressive reaction he’d gotten from a present since he’d got Charlie a Gameboy. “This is incredible. Thank you.” She kissed him and quite honestly, he forgot about his name let alone the gift for a good few minutes as she pushed him back onto the rug and proceeded to thoroughly fuck his mouth with her tongue. She pulled back almost as suddenly as she’d started, and he sat up a little dazed as she returned to her new toy and started fiddling with it.

“So,” he cleared his throat, trying to get blood flow going back upwards, “from what the guy told me they’re a one-use only kind of deal and only for a couple of minutes, but they will make you pretty much invisible.” he said when she didn’t look up, engrossed, “Thought it might give you a new project for oh, a couple of weeks at least.” He grinned and she finally raised her head and give him a megawatt smile that made her blue eyes twinkle mischievously. Oh, he was so in the good books for this one! Although he realised that now he was probably going to have to sort out a new birthday present for her. 

“It’s honestly perfect Jack. Thank you so much.” she glanced up at him with that wide eyed innocence of discovery. “You’re wonderful.” she hummed, “I think I might be able to tweak it, maybe tie it into the PipBoy and make it a more permanent feature. The length of time may take some work, plus I think this thing is a lot more radioactive than the PipBoy. I’m fairly sure it’s designed to deliberately leak.” she explained at about a million miles an hour, as usual.

Jack flinched. “What?” he covered his balls slightly. “I didn’t mean to get you anything dangerous!” he exclaimed.

Sam cocked an eyebrow at her. “Everything out here’s dangerous, and everyone.” she reminded him, “Even us.”

“Wow. Now that is a bit too deep and dark for Christmas.” he groaned and crept forward on his hands and knees. “Put that gadget down.” he ordered, only half serious. “And get over here and give your husband a kiss.”

“Another one?” she teased, but she didn’t look nearly as put out as she sounded. In fact she was putting the thing aside for him and giving him a very coy little smile. “Did you want to open your last present?” she asked quietly crawling forward to meet him and slipping over him to straddle his lap.

“Depends … are you inside it?” he sighed, running his hands up and down her sides. Sam turned and pointed to the suitcase under the bed. 

“Open it and see.” He glanced over at the tempting packaging. He’d been desperate to open it since before dinner, but now she was on his lap, he was quite happy to stay where he was. “I don’t know, seems nice here. I’m kind of full … big meal, lots of Donapples.” he replied lowering his hands to circle her oh so curvy ass. 

“I noticed.” She grinned, her hand rubbing his toned stomach which didn’t look like he’d eaten about five of the things. “I keep expecting for you to get bored of that diet.” she added, which was frankly ridiculous. Never going to happen. They were amazing alone, but they were even better with whisky. “All this time I thought Teal’c was the one with the donut habit … but he was just enabling you, wasn’t he?” she smirked and slid her hands around his face, kissing a line down his jaw, until he was almost desperate for her to find his mouth. So of course, she stopped. “Do as your new wife says.” She pressed a kiss to his lips and drew his bottom lip between her teeth, “go get it, I swear it’s worth it.”

“I doubt whatever is in there is worth more than giving up a lap full of gorgeous, incredibly sexy, very tipsy blonde right now.” he replied, utterly meaning that. 

“Wanna bet?” He laughed, oh, it was like that. He grinned pressing a peck to her lips and lifting her up, hopping up to his feet and pulling her with him.

“Okay, so now I’m intrigued.” he admitted, taking her hand and walking backwards with her. It was pretty sad but he didn’t want to take his eyes off her, not for a minute. Her knowing grin was kind of hot too. When he reached the bed, he let go of her to pop his hand under and fish out the suitcase. “Nice wrapping.” he admitted, putting it on the bed to untie the scarf she’d used as a ribbon. He whipped open the zip with a flourish, far too eager now and flipped open the lid. “Oh Sam baby … now that is a hat.” Jack reached in and picked up the pristine black fedora, with the silver band. He slipped it on his head and swept the brim. His eyes fell onto the black trench coat with the silver trim and his eyes swept back to his comics. “Sam, is this the actual Silver Shroud costume?”

She shook her head smiling at him fondly. “God I used to think you were so cool, and to think you had the nerve to call me and Daniel dorks.”

“Nerd. Actually.” he replied, “Dorks, a whole other thing.” He shrugged, “Besides, I am cool, and I thought you were the hottest nerd I’d ever seen.”

“Then I’ll imagine you’ll like what’s under there.” She indicated the outfit and he pulled it out. His eyes alighting on a skimpy little green tarzan-esque number. “That one’s not for you, FYI.” She smirked.

“Ohh.” Jack felt his mouth go dry. “Now that is a Christmas present.” He looked her dead in the eye, “Ho ho ho, I’m feeling very, very jolly about that one.” He reached for her and she escaped his grasp, darting to the other side of the bed and grinning wickedly at him. He returned his attention to the skimpy little costume. “I see you’ve added a top to the loincloth … not sure I care for that addition.” He grinned up at her, barely believing that his wife had presented him with a smorgasbord of goodies like this. “A genuine, Grognak costume.” Jack shook his head grinning, “If you tell me the weapons are in the other trunk, I’ll probably have an accident in my pants again.”

Sam snorted, laughing at him and throwing herself onto the bed, propping up on her elbows. “The submachine gun of the Shrouds was a bust, it was a dummy prop. But, I might have found a suitable alternative.” He looked up in faint shock as he slipped the outfit on over his t-shirt, buttoning up the jacket, and noticed that the scarf-ribbon she had used was in fact a silver scarf, to complete the set. Very inventive. Jack slipped it around his neck, flicking up the back collar and sticking his hands in his pockets. “What do you think? Does justice walk the streets tonight?” he growled. Sam looked more amused than aroused, but he could work with that as he hopped onto the bed and slid next to her.

“Do you like it?” she asked, swiping the hat of his head and plonking it on hers. 

“You know I do.” He grinned, “Although I’m liking that look on you.” He tipped the hat. “Care to try yours on?”

Sam rolled her eyes, her eyes sparking with mischief that he had learnt to fear and anticipate with equal measure. “How about I be the Silver Shroud, you be the barbarian in the little loincloth? I know which would turn me on more.” Hot damn.

Jack grinned, reaching for his very naughty wife. “Oh, it’s going to be a very merry Christmas to me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that bought some cheer to the lockdown Wasteland for you. Back to our regularly scheduled programming next time. Happy Holidays everyone.
> 
> FYI I’ve gone with the canon for their birthdays, respectively. Jack’s is 20th October 1952, Sam’s is 29th December 1968 (Orlin got it wrong). Sam’s turning 37 and Jack’s just gone 53, as this story is still set in 2005 (just).
> 
> If you’re interested in the outfits – which come on, you know you are:  
> https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Grognak_costume_(Fallout_4)  
> https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Silver_Shroud_costume_(Fallout_4)
> 
> For those of you who've never seen/played Fallout I recommend these videos: they get progressively sillier but they do highlight some of the best parts of the game and the atmosphere that I've tried to cover in my fic as an avid fan. Let me know if it was anything like you pictured from my writing!  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5aJfebzkrM&has_verified=1  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxYkD7MS4Bs  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y90uj8hs78c


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